linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v10 05/13] kbuild: remove MODULE_LICENSE/AUTHOR/DESCRIPTION in non-modules

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Date:   Tue, 6 Dec 2022 21:03:52 -0800
From:   Luis Chamberlain <mcgrof@...nel.org>
To:     Arnd Bergmann <arnd@...db.de>,
        Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        Masahiro Yamada <masahiroy@...nel.org>,
        Steven Rostedt <rostedt@...dmis.org>
Cc:     Nick Alcock <nick.alcock@...cle.com>,
        Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@...ux-m68k.org>,
        linux-modules@...r.kernel.org, linux-trace-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...ux-foundation.org>,
        eugene.loh@...cle.com, kris.van.hees@...cle.com
Subject: Re: [PATCH v10 05/13] kbuild: remove
 MODULE_LICENSE/AUTHOR/DESCRIPTION in non-modules

On Tue, Dec 06, 2022 at 10:02:30PM +0100, Arnd Bergmann wrote:
> On Tue, Dec 6, 2022, at 21:03, Nick Alcock wrote:
> > On 6 Dec 2022, Geert Uytterhoeven uttered the following:
> > Only MODULE_LICENSE invokes MODULE_FILE and thus ends up introducing a
> > KBUILD_MODOBJS entry that triggers things going wrong iff not a module:
> > so only it needs to go out (or be replaced with a variant that doesn't
> > invoke MODULE_FILE, if you want to keep the license in too --
> 
> That sounds like a better alternative
> 
> > but if the thing is no longer a standalone entity at all I'm not sure
> > what meaning it could possibly have).
> 
> As far as I can tell, the general trend is to make more things modules,
> so there is a good chance that these come back eventually. If the
> information in the MODULE_LICENSE field isn't wrong, I would just
> leave it in there.

Tooling today uses it though to make a deterministic call on if something
*can* be a module. In particular after commit 8b41fc4454e ("kbuild: create
modules.builtin without Makefile.modbuiltin or tristate.conf") we rely on
the module license tag to generate the modules.builtin file. This in
turn is used to allow modprobe to *not* fail when trying to load a module
which is built-in.

So we can't just disable the tag for when the code is built-in as *want*
to carry it when modules are built-in, that is the point, to help
userspace with this determination.

I don't think we want to revert 8b41fc4454e as it means we'd force Kbuild to
traverse the source tree twice.

Geert's point was not keeping MODULE_LICENSE() but instead the other
MODULE_*() crap for things which are not modules in case in the future
code becomes a module...

But I don't see the point in keeping things around just in case, if we
want to keep things simple. Just use the SPDX license tag for the license.

  Luis