Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"
Matthew Jacob wrote: > Question #1: Is it _ethical_ (legality aside) to take someone else's actively maintained work (for example an OpenBSD driver) and make changes which can not be shared/used by the original developer/maintainer? Answer #1: Considering that the whole reason I personally choose the GPL for some projects is to prevent this sort of one way street behavior _away_ from the original OSS developers/contributors _my_ answer must be; No it is not ethical. I beg to differ. If you want to put things out there for others to use but want to avoid having the situation as you describe it, simply license the work as such (which would be neither BSD nor GPL)- requiring any changes to come back to the original maintainer. *Snort*. I seem to recall Unix commercial distributions that made claims that bug fixes that you made belonged to them. ... But is it _ethical_ (as opposed to legal) to violate the expressed intent of the original author ... IP laws (including copyright) are generally used as an imperfect (and internationally inconsistent) mechanism to protect intent, but inexact application of those laws affects enforcement as law ... however, respect for intent remains the ethical standard by which I (for one) would prefer to govern my life. --Jonathan-- - 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/
Re: "GPL weasels and the atheros stink"
While the title of Marc's email might be construed as flame bait, it is disappointing to see that the generally very valid points he has made (as both a BSD _and_ _GPL_ developer) are being ignored. To make it simple try answering these two questions: Question #1: Is it _ethical_ (legality aside) to take someone else's actively maintained work (for example an OpenBSD driver) and make changes which can not be shared/used by the original developer/maintainer? Answer #1: Considering that the whole reason I personally choose the GPL for some projects is to prevent this sort of one way street behavior _away_ from the original OSS developers/contributors _my_ answer must be; No it is not ethical. Question #2: Is it _technically beneficial_ to branch an OSS work (for example an OpenBSD driver) in such a way as to diminish the ability to share contributions between projects? Answer #2: It would be fascinating (and sad) to see an attempt at justifying a yes response to this question. Please don't let the rude language or defensiveness bought out by this particular incident distract from doing the right thing. Just because you legally can (or might be able to) do something doesn't make it right. --Jonathan-- P.S. As a secondary concern; it could be legally dubious with some governments to relicense an existing file from the OpenBSD license (given that the copyright license must remain intact) -- though patches could themselves _technically_ be GPL. Creating _new_ GPL files which work _with_ the existing BSD licensed has no such ambiguity, but please see questions #1 and #2 above -- is it the _right_ thing to do? - 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/
Re: Please open sysfs symbols to proprietary modules
> ...The EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is a license statement to binary module developers... As noted repeatedly a symbol prefix doesn't appear to carry any legal weight under U.S. law. In fact the GPL copyright notice is appear legally limited to the granting of *copy* *rights* per U.S. copyright law and specifically does _not_ appear to implicitly or explicitly create the kind of exceptions you seem to be looking for. > The one major stumbling block is that any code that imports symbols > that are exported via "EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL" can only legally _export_ > symbols using the same, for the reason I stated above. The GPL as a *copy* *right* notice can apparently only apply obviously derivative works under U.S. law, and an independent driver created for a different OS is obviously _not_ a derivative work. Basically the attempt to create such a distinction does not appear to be supported by U.S. law as applied to the GPL. > If it's a non-GPL module it _cannot_ legally use EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPLed > symbols, either directly or indirectly, under any circumstances. Actually you can probably use any symbols you want since only the glue layer to the OS independent driver is would appear derivative of Linux, and since the glue layer appears to be derivative of two *independent* works (the OS and the Driver when done this way) you might need to license the glue layer in a way which is compatible with both works. The current BSD license could be a good choice in this instance. ** As noted previously it would be interested to see the opinion of a U.S. IP lawyer who has conclusively tested the impact of copy right law where the boundary of what constitutes a derivative work was explicitly stated by a federal judge. - P.S. Consider a kernel module which allows the use of a binary only MS-Windows driver in its unmodified stated. Could you actually consider the MS-Windows driver to be a derivative work of the Linux kernel by virtue of an intermediate glue module which was BSD licensed and made free use of all symbols? Would the Linux kernel be considered a derivative work of your motherboards firmware? These seem rather unlikely conclusions. - 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/
Re: Please open sysfs symbols to proprietary modules
As an observation: The Linux kernel appears to contain the GPL copyright notice. This appears to explicitly releases the right to alter anything in a copy written work which shares that copyright notice. Therefore, all exported symbols would appear to carry equal weight; thus making the GPL_ prefix a notation of dubious value. Furthermore, it seems as if that the copyright might allow changing the GPL_ prefix notation to anything including BSD_HOOK_FOR_PORTING_DRIVERS_TO_THE_LINUX_KERNEL_ instead. It would seem just as surprising if the U.S. courts were to stop considering history of enforcement in copyright law as it would if they were to start considering in cases of patent law. (I would love to see the opinion of an IP lawyer who has conclusively tested these aspects of copyright law in court.) A paranoid approach it to develop your driver targeted at FreeBSD, and then develop a glue layer abstraction for porting to other OS's. Then you simply might GPL your glue layer code as a module using any symbols you want for your GPL copy written code per the observations earlier in this email. In this way you will have created a work with no intrinsic dependencies on the Linux kernel which avoids presenting your work as an obvious target for those who prefer to spend their time looking for targets. :-) P.S. Sorry about breaking mailer threading. :-( - 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/
