Re: incorrect taint of ndiswrapper

From: Roland Kuhn
Date: Fri Oct 27 2006 - 09:16:22 EST


Hi Pavel!

On 27 Oct 2006, at 00:29, Pavel Roskin wrote:

EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL shows a pretty clear intention, and offering
functionality provided throug h EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL'ed symbols to
proprietary code sounds very fishy.

Last time I checked, EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL was an indication that a code
using it will be considered as a work derived from Linux. This way,
ndiswrapper, which is free software, can be considered a derived work.

NDIS drivers don't know about any Linux API, therefore they cannot use
it directly. The purpose of ndiswrapper is not to remove limitations
from the Linux API, but to present a completely different API.

Maybe everyone would be more happy if this "completely different API" would live at lower priviledge level, e.g. ring 1, so it could not screw up kernel internals? Is this technically possible? Maybe it's the same thing, but another way could be to run NDIS stuff inside a xen-like virtual environment... Has anyone tried yet?

Ciao,
Roland

--
TU Muenchen, Physik-Department E18, James-Franck-Str., 85748 Garching
Telefon 089/289-12575; Telefax 089/289-12570
--
CERN office: 892-1-D23 phone: +41 22 7676540 mobile: +41 76 487 4482
--
Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little
security will deserve neither and lose both. - Benjamin Franklin
-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version: 3.12
GS/CS/M/MU d-(++) s:+ a-> C+++ UL++++ P+++ L+++ E(+) W+ !N K- w--- M + !V Y+
PGP++ t+(++) 5 R+ tv-- b+ DI++ e+++>++++ h---- y+++
------END GEEK CODE BLOCK------


Attachment: PGP.sig
Description: This is a digitally signed message part