No its not. It wasn't common knowledge 3 years ago when we chose Linux as an embedded platform. If it indeed is common knowledge that loadable modules in Linux have to be open-source then it is very probable that we wouldn't have chosen Linux as the platform of choice. If this indeed is the case and is common knowledge, then I predict that Linux will soon drop in popularity as the OS of choice in embedded systems.
On 2/14/07, Lee Revell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Um... it's been common knowledge for years that the legal status of non-GPL kernel modules is an open issue. Specifically, whether a device driver written for the Linux kernel is a derived work of the kernel. Sounds like you didn't do your homework 3 years ago. Why did you assume that linking a non-GPL module into the GPL Linux kernel was legal? You have read the GPL right? Lee On 2/15/07, v j <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > This is in reference to the following thread: > > http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/14/63 > > I am not sure if this is ever addressed in LKML, but linux is _very_ > popular in the embedded space. We (an embedded vendor) chose Linux 3 > years back because of its lack of royalty model, robustness and > availability of infinite number of open-source tools. > > We recently decided to move to Linux 2.6 for our next product, mainly > because Linux has worked so well for us in the past, and we would like > to move up to keep up with the latest and greatest. > > However in moving to 2.6, we noticed a number of alarming things. > Porting drivers over from devfs to udev, though easy raised a number > of alarming issues. Driver's no longer could dynamically allocate > their MAJOR/MINOR numbers. Doing so would mean they would have to use > sysfs. However it seems that sysfs (and the class_ interface) is only > available to GPL modules. This is very concerning. The drivers which > we have written over the last three years are suddenly under threat. > We don't mind statically assigning MAJOR/MINOR numbers to our drivers. > We can do this and modify our user space applications too. > > However we have a worrying trend here. If at some point it becomes > illegal to load our modules into the linux kernel, then it is > unacceptable to us. We would have been better off choosing VxWorks or > OSE 3 years ago when we made an OS choice. The fact that Linux is > becoming more and more closed is very very alarming. > > vj. > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >
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