[hcflinux] re: hcfpciosspec.o will taint the kernel (non GPL)

[Jonathan Savage]

That message has to do with the possibility that the module in question is
(possibly) not 100%
GPL. I believe the modules that Marc provides do include some non-open source
code.

See below for excerpt from the kernel list FAQ:

"Some vendors distribute binary modules (i.e. modules without available source
code under a free software license). As the source is not freely available,
any bugs uncovered whilst such modules are loaded cannot be investigated by
the kernel hackers. All problems discovered whilst such a module is loaded
must be reported to the vendor of that module, not the Linux kernel hackers
and the linux-kernel mailing list. The tainting scheme is used to identify bug
reports from kernels with binary modules loaded: such kernels are marked as
"tainted" by means of the MODULE_LICENSE tag. If a module is loaded that does
not specify an approved license, the kernel is marked as tainted. The
canonical list of approved license strings is in linux/include/module.h."