Re: [PATCH 1/8] kbuild, PCI: generic,versatile: comment out MODULE_LICENSE in non-modules

From: Bjorn Helgaas
Date: Mon Feb 13 2023 - 17:57:32 EST


On Fri, Feb 10, 2023 at 04:47:42PM +0000, Nick Alcock wrote:
> Since commit 8b41fc4454e ("kbuild: create modules.builtin without
> Makefile.modbuiltin or tristate.conf"), MODULE_LICENSE declarations
> are used to identify modules. As a consequence, uses of the macro
> in non-modules will cause modprobe to misidentify their containing
> object file as a module when it is not (false positives), and modprobe
> might succeed rather than failing with a suitable error message.
>
> So comment out all uses of MODULE_LICENSE that are not in real modules
> (the license declaration is left in as documentation).

Weird that all the patches are for drivers/pci/, but the cover letter
didn't go to linux-pci@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.

- Please drop "kbuild," from the subject; I don't think it's really
relevant.

- Please follow the subject line convention for each file. They're
mostly there after dropping "kbuild", but do capitalize the
sentence that follows the prefix. The prefix should always be
"PCI/<driver-tag>: "

- Remove the MODULE_LICENSE instead of commenting it out.

- I think every file in drivers/pci that needs one already has SPDX.

- AFAICT, SPDX is the dispositive license and MODULE_LICENSE just
determines which interfaces are available to the module, so
dropping MODULE_LICENSE shouldn't be a problem as far as legal
issues.