Thanks to Pete for finding this one…

There is another GPL-only issue with NVIDIA and Kernel 4.14-rc2, but this one only occurs if you have an AMD system, with the new ‘secure memory encryption’ feature enabled…    It may also crop up if you are using a Distro-created version of this kernel release, as these tend to have almost-everything-enabled in their kernel config.

If you have ‘AMD Secure Memory Encryption (SME) support‘ enabled in your kernel config, then the NVIDIA ( 384.90 ) compile/load will fail:

..................
ld -r -o /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-384.90/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nv-modeset-interface.o /home/rgadsdon/kernel/NVIDIA-Linux-x86_64-384.90/kernel/nvidia-modeset/nvidia-modeset-linux.o
 Building modules, stage 2.
 MODPOST 4 modules
FATAL: modpost: GPL-incompatible module nvidia.ko uses GPL-only symbol 'sme_me_mask'
make[3]: *** [/usr/src/linux-4.14-rc2/scripts/Makefile.modpost:91: __modpost] Error 1
make[2]: *** [/usr/src/linux-4.14-rc2/Makefile:1502: modules] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.14-rc2'
make[1]: *** [Makefile:145: sub-make] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory '/usr/src/linux-4.14-rc2'
make: *** [Makefile:81: modules] Error 2

The workaround – for the time being – is to de-select this feature in the Kernel config….

Hopefully this will get fixed soon, as it has already been mentioned in one of the related mailing lists:  https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-arch/msg41632.html

Robert Gadsdon.  October 1, 2017.