On Wednesday, August 19, 2015 5:28:37 PM Rich Freeman wrote: > On Wed, Aug 19, 2015 at 3:06 PM, Fernando Rodriguez > <frodriguez.develo...@outlook.com> wrote: > > > > The illegal part is not loading it but distributing the blob that depends on > > the GPL exports. > > What makes it illegal? Quote the text of the relevant statute or > court case. That is the issue here. People argue that linking > creates a derivative work, and I think that at best it only creates a > derivative work after the image ends up in RAM. The blob itself > doesn't contain any kernel code, unless you count a bunch of symbol > names. And that is API copyrighting, which is a horrible idea (though > one the US seems to be entertaining now all the same; Murcia!).
I'm not a lawyer but as I understand it, it's not on the "letter of the law" because it's a technical issue and the law hasn't caught up. My view, and what I think is most in the spirit of the law, is that it is a derived work simply because it doesn't work without those GPL exports. -- Fernando Rodriguez
