On 18/04/07, Erik Trimble <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > And why would it need to be? As long as you don't distribute it as > part of the Linux kernel or with a Linux kernel, you should be > perfectly fine. > > (It is the end user who gets to assemble the bits; he cannot distribute > the results any further but an enduser is not bound by any of the > GPL terms which specifically restrict the way in you can copy or > redistribute) > > Casper > _______________________________________________ > It doesn't work that way. If the code can be considered to be part of a larger whole, then it gets covered by the GPL. Doesn't matter if you distribute the code section separately. The sticky part is what constitutes a "whole" - are kernel modules considered part of the Linux kernel as a whole? That's the legal grey area; the general Linux community seems to be on the side of "yes". It's a similar problem as to linking against a GPL'd library. There isn't a good definition (legal or otherwise) as to what constitutes a separate program, and what is an extention to an existing program.
I don't agree with that interpretation, and I can cite so many examples that disprove it. Also, I have seen several people here claim that nVidia/ATi have a GPL "shim" for their driver, which at last check is NOT true. Even if they did, Stallman has stated quite clearly that such a mechanism is not sufficient to bypass the requirements of the GPL. vmware, ATi, nVidia, Veritas, and *many* other vendors all have binary-only kernel modules with or without shims or any kind and have no issue distributing their modules. I believe they all have to be compiled or "linked" to work with the current kernel version, but it seems to bypass the licensing issues. Linus seems to support this view: nVidia: http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/3/234 http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/5/125 http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/10/152 General: http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/13/370 In short, code that was written without any _Linux_ origin can probably be ported and distributed without issue in his view though a Judge could decide otherwise and some kernel developers feel otherwise. -- "Less is only more where more is no good." --Frank Lloyd Wright Shawn Walker, Software and Systems Analyst [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://binarycrusader.blogspot.com/ _______________________________________________ zfs-discuss mailing list zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
