Re: GPL issues

Kyle Moffett
2006-04-11T16:15:39Z

On Apr 11, 2006, at 11:49:44, Ramakanth Gunuganti wrote:
> Thanks for the replies, talking to a lawyer seems to be too
> stringent a requirement to even evaluate Linux. Who would be the
> ultimate authority to give definitive answers to these questions?

Once again, as I said before, a lawyer. There are currently very few
GPL-related precedents, and none on that particular topic. The best
place to get advice is a lawyer. Think of it as though you were
licensing some code from another proprietary company for inclusion in
your product; there you would _definitely_ talk to a lawyer. The
"ultimate authority" is your local/regional/national courts, a local
lawyer is best able to use your particular set of laws to interpret
what your courts are likely to decide and advise you accordingly.
Nobody on this list can give you that kind of legal advice, at least
not for free.

> Since it's the Linux kernel that's under GPLv2, any work done here
> should be released under GPLv2.

Any "Derivative Work" of the Linux kernel must be licensed under the
GPL. The definition of "Derivative Work" is hard to resolve in
detail. Most kernel developers (including Linus himself) believe
that all kernel modules are derivative works due to the unique and
variable nature of the in-kernel APIs. It is almost always held that
userspace-only programs are _not_ derivative works. On the other
hand, if you export some kernel-internal API directly to userspace
through a syscall, any program that uses it might be considered a
derivative work.

> Can we just claim that part of the package is under GPL and only
> release the source code for the kernel portions.

It really depends, which is why I suggest you contact a lawyer versed
in this field. Virtually none of the people on this list can give
you any definitive answers, especially without access to the product
itself, and even then they would most likely just tell you of their
personal opinion which has no legal weight whatsoever.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett