On Friday 22 June 2007 12:37, Johannes Schindelin wrote: > If at the same time you make something original, which is not derived from > the GPLed program, then you are as free as a bird to sh*t on the GPL with > regards to your original work. You can choose whatever license, if any.
Not if you want to distribute the GPL'd work, or anything derived from it. > The GPL is only insofar viral as you cannot take something GPLed and just > relicense it at will. Not even when you modify it. Then explain the difference between the LGPL and GPL. A license that preserves itself only is pointless without other terms. > However, writing a virtual device that just happens to be dynamically > linkable to QEmu, but might just as well be linked to VMWare, is fine. > This virtual device is clearly _not_ derived from QEmu. That allows you to distribute the virtual device by itself, not alongside with Qemu. > Besides, QEmu's core is LGPL. Not GPL. Good point, and makes this entire argument mostly irrelevant. > > It is undisputed that it would be in violation if the kernel was > > distributed with the modules. > > Nope. It is not undisputed. It is undisputed by anyone who has ever considered the issue as part of deciding whether or not to do it. > > It is also fairly clear (the opinions of many kernel developers and IP > > lawyers) that proprietary modules for Linux are illegal to distribute. > > Nope. Not at all. http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html > I'd rather have your virtual device open sourced, but if you cannot do > that, I'd rather have it closed-source, than not at all. I would never buy software without source. Hopefully someday I can apply this to hardware as well.
