Re: [PATCH 5.4 031/184] modules: inherit TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE

[Greg Kroah-Hartman]

On Fri, Jun 18, 2021 at 10:57:23AM +0200, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> On 10/05/2021 12:18, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > From: Christoph Hellwig <hch@xxxxxx>
> > 
> > commit 262e6ae7081df304fc625cf368d5c2cbba2bb991 upstream.
> > 
> > If a TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE exports symbol, inherit the taint flag
> > for all modules importing these symbols, and don't allow loading
> > symbols from TAINT_PROPRIETARY_MODULE modules if the module previously
> > imported gplonly symbols.  Add a anti-circumvention devices so people
> > don't accidentally get themselves into trouble this way.
> > 
> > Comment from Greg:
> >   "Ah, the proven-to-be-illegal "GPL Condom" defense :)"
> 
> Patch got in to stable, so my comments are quite late, but can someone
> explain me - how this is a stable material? What specific, real bug that
> bothers people, is being fixed here? Or maybe it fixes serious issue
> reported by a user of distribution kernel? IOW, how does this match
> stable kernel rules at all?
> 
> For sure it breaks some out-of-tree modules already present and used by
> customers of downstream stable kernels. Therefore I wonder what is the
> bug fixed here, so the breakage and annoyance of stable users is justified.

It fixes a reported bug in that somehow symbols are being exported to
modules that should not have been.  This has been in mainline and newer
stable releases for quite some time, it should not be a suprise that
this was backported further as well.

thanks,

greg k-h