From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S266139AbTLaGhT (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:37:19 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S266141AbTLaGhT (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:37:19 -0500 Received: from parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk ([195.92.249.252]:4548 "EHLO www.linux.org.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S266139AbTLaGhR (ORCPT ); Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:37:17 -0500 Message-ID: <3FF26E8A.5070806@pobox.com> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 2003 01:36:58 -0500 From: Jeff Garzik User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030703 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: =?ISO-8859-1?Q?Karel_Kulhav=FD?= CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Compatibility of Nvidia NVNET driver license with GPL References: <20031231073101.A474@beton.cybernet.src> In-Reply-To: <20031231073101.A474@beton.cybernet.src> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Karel Kulhavý wrote: > Hello > > I faintly remember reading some article on the Net from Linus Torvalds stating > something like if a piece of code is written specifically for Linux kernel, it > must be under GPL. > > I have got an nVidia NForce2 board and downloaded their Ethernet driver (nvnet) > and they say in README: "the network driver provided by NVIDIA is subject to > the NVIDIA software license". How is with compatibility of such a behaviour > with GPL of the kernel sources? Since I am not a lawyer, my engineering suggestion would be to sidestep legal issues by using "forcedeth" driver, to drive your nForce NIC. It's fully GPL'd, and full open source. Jeff