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do you think that MODULE_LICENSE is taking it to far?

You know, you could have posted a link, because I'm sure many people have no clue what you are talking about (me included):

http://lwn.net/Articles/82305/

You could have also clarified a bit about what you meant with "is it to far" ... that's kinda vague. I'm assuming that you mean MODULE_LICENSE is some type of extreme measure and whether it would bother people.

It doesn't bother me ... it has a purpose as seen in the article here.

but its taking it too far
to complicate the code and give warning and potental slow downs and bugs
for somthing that doesnt really matter
my kernel will not have module support

What are you referring to, I would like to help out as a newby, if I could. Please be more specific regarding the subject, Kind regards, Bob.

LOL
what i am saying is in linux kernel modules
if you do not put MODULE_LICENCE("GPL");
it says the kernel is tainted
but thats not so bad because anybody would ignore it
but if you dont it actually restricts the module from using functions
i mean WTF its just an address in memory
the license should of nothing to what byte of memory you execute

Unless of course the intentions of the ones who wrote the module is either not clear or even malevolent ... such as can happen with proprietary software...

the warnings fine but the function restiction is rediculus
its like saying i will give you this fancy new operating system for free
but because i dont like you you can only click the mouse on pixels divisable by 10

Isn't there an option to disable the feature, maybe that would solve this issue.

i dont think so
it seems like its a case of microsoft strikes again
microsoft is getting so bad that its even affecting and tearing apart the good operating systems

This has NOTHING to do with Microsoft. It also isn't, "like saying i will give you this fancy new operating system for free
but because i dont like you you can only click the mouse on pixels divisable by 10".

It's like saying, "A bunch of us got together and made this recording, but some of the band members and a group from the choir decided that they only wanted to allow people from their church to listen. Some of us don't care, but some do. In order to abide by their wishes, we made the player that plays the album ask what church you are from and then their parts are automatically disabled if you reply you are from another church. So, if you aren't from their church, you won't be able to hear their parts in any of the music."

The authors (And copyright holders), are allowed to put whatever restrictions they want in their license for you to use their code. Thus, they use the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL directive to deny access to their code if the kernel is tainted. Want to use their code, then you must follow their license. If you don't want to follow their license, then you need to write your own code to replace their parts.

Another note, Linux is not "Free". You cannot just use it any way you want like a public domain work. It has a license that you must agree to and follow in order to use it.

Forrest

i know it has a licence
but putting the licence not just down the the program
but to the function is over stepping there bounds

No it isn't. They may have ONLY written one function. It's also their choice. If I hand out free pizza to people and you come along and say, "Hey, if you can tell me the capitol of Gorblorkastan, I'll add peperoni to the pizza Forrest is handing out", you aren't required to give peperoni to people who can't answer. Likewise, if someone writes a really cool kernel function and says, "I wrote this function, and anybody can use it as long as they don't try to do so from a binary only module", they shouldn't be required to provide the API's to their function to a binary only module. It's their function, they wrote it, and it IS within their bounds to decide who uses it. It would be OUTSIDE their bounds to say that MY function has to also adhere to the same restrictions if I don't want those restrictions, but this isn't what they are doing. It would ALSO be OUTSIDE boundaries if they were forced to allow binary modules access to their code against their wishes.

It seems to me you are thinking that the kernel developers are a small group of people that wrote everything. They are not. There are thousands of people that submit kernel code and in order to get better quality code, the small group that maintains the official kernel decided it was better to accept code with the "GPL only" flag than it was to not have all of the functions that use it (because that would be the only other legal option if they didn't want to follow the original authors wishes).

Forrest

what if your module is open source but not under GPL
for example the non profit open software license its not GPL but it still is open source

also is it agenst the licence if i remove the support to restirct the modules
on my copy of the kernel and do not distribute it

I'm not familiar with whether or not the particular license you are referring to would taint the kernel (I'm guessing it would). However, if an author wants to deny their code's symbols to binary-only modules but modules with that license are OK w/ them and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL prevented them from exporting their symbols to those modules, they would have to come up with another way to block binary-only but allow that license. Or, perhaps that is included in the EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL function. I really don't know, I'm not a kernel developer.

Forrest