"Oded Arbel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Wrote: > I do not know what was the original status of MOSIX or what the allegations > were, but the setting you described here will violate the GPL as it is > usually interpeted (again : IANAL and I don't think this was ever conteseted > in court) IF : > the binary code will link in run time (or in any way run in cooperation > with) a GPLed code, while at the same time not doing anything useful w/o > having the GPLed code around.
The status of MOSIX was as described and there is no argument about us being (at the time) in violation of the GPL: we were probably also in violation of the Microsoft license (for not displaying the Microsoft logo), the Iranian constitution (for working from Israel), the Jewish law (for whatever parts were written during the Shabbat) and many other laws of different states, companies and organizations. The whole GPL-based arguments are irrelevant: we were distributing a piece of software that was written and copyrighted solely by us, we did not copy anybody else's code (including implicitly due to compilation), therefore we have the right to issue our own software in any way we like. The purpose/usefullness of this code is also irrelevant, so long as it is legal (eg. not designed to produce bombs, drugs or for other crimes), and there is no law against linking one's software against another piece of legally-obtained software. > > of course - Linus' attitude as described in this forum a number of times > would probably mean you won't get sued.. We would not get sued because: 1. MOSIX is now GPL anyway. 2. we violated no law, we stole nobody's intellectual-property. (to remind you, in a court of law, the judge(s) go by the law of the land, not by the GPL). Linus' attitudes are irrelevant: they only matter in the context of GNU/Linux, for those wishing to copy, distribute or modify code/binary that includes his Copyrighted/licensed work. Amnon Shiloh -- the HUJI MOSIX group. > > Oded > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Amnon Shiloh" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2001 3:32 AM > Subject: Re: making a non-GPLed module > > > > Oleg Goldshmidt <ogoldshmidt(at-nospam)computer.org Wrote: > > > > > One recent controversy involved MOSIX, who allegedly violated GPL by > > > hacking the kernel itself rather than sticking to writing modules. > > > > We in the MOSIX team did not violate any copyright or do anything illegal: > > It is true that parts of our software did not comply with the GPL, > > but there was no reason they should have. > > > > The software we released in the first versions of MOSIX for Linux-2.2.x > > could be divided to 5 different categories: > > > > 1) Some user sources - GPL (although they didn't have to be so); > > 2) Modifications to existing Linux kernel files - GPL; > > 3) New kernel files that #include or even borrow a few lines > > from the Linux kernel - GPL; > > 4) New kernel files, mainly header-files (#include) that do not #include > > or otherwise use a single character from the Linux kernel - > > These had a dual-license: > > a) GPL for the world > > b) private for our own use as authors > > 5) Binary code (eg. module) derived from our sources and contained no > single > > character from GPL-code and did not even #include any GPL'd file, only > > headers from category #4 used in our private/owner capacity. > > > > Since our binary module did not contain anything from Linux, we could > issue > > it in any way we pleased: we did not even need to consider the GPL or > > obtain any license or permission from anybody whatsoever. > > > > Amnon Shiloh -- the HUJI MOSIX group. ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
