Re: blatant GPL violation of ext2 and reiserfs filesystem drivers

Jeff V. Merkey
2005-12-23T00:43:56Z

Steven Rostedt wrote:

>On Thu, 2005-12-22 at 13:01 -0500, Kyle Moffett wrote:
>
>
>>On Dec 22, 2005, at 11:08, Robert W. Fuller wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Please see the following thread:
>>>
>>>http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=2132&tstart=0x
>>>
>>>Sorry I didn't get around to reporting this sooner, but at least
>>>the guilty party has had plenty of time to fail to repent.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Rob
>>>
>>>
>>This case looks about as black and white as it gets (although IANAL),
>>so I'm adding gpl-violations.org-legal to the CC list.
>>
>>
>
>I'm not sure this is the case here or not, but it definitely brings up
>an interesting question.
>
>Since the dynamic loading of binary modules into Linux seems to be a
>gray area, since if I give you a binary module that loads into Linux,
>but except for the API found in the header files, the module contains no
>GPL code. Is it bound to the GPL? This is a rhetorical question, please
>don't answer it.
>
>Now the real question: If one were to have an operating system, and set
>up a layer that simulated the API of Linux, such that Linux binary
>modules could be loaded, is _that_ a violation of the GPL?
>

No , it is not. It's called "reverse engineering".

Jeff

>IOW, one
>would only distribute to you a system that has no GPL code, and only
>simulates an API, which is legal otherwise Samba wouldn't exist. But the
>user has the option of compiling a Linux module to get the benefits from
>it. Sort of a ndiswrapper in reverse!
>
>-- Steve
>
>
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
>Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>
>
>