Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source drivers?

David Lang
2003-01-02T01:12:37Z

well libc uses the kernel headers and basicly all userspace programs use
libc so that makes oracle a derivitive work of the kernel??????

luckly that's not how things actually work.

David Lang

On Thu, 2 Jan 2003, Paul Jakma wrote:

> Date: Thu, 2 Jan 2003 00:31:13 +0000 (GMT)
> From: Paul Jakma <paul@clubi.ie>
> To: Rik van Riel <riel@conectiva.com.br>
> Cc: Hell.Surfers@cwctv.net, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, rms@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Why is Nvidia given GPL'd code to use in closed source
> drivers?
>
> On Wed, 1 Jan 2003, Rik van Riel wrote:
>
> > Copyright law is pretty explicit about the situations the GPL
> > applies to. If something can be reasonably considered to be a
> > "derivative work" of a GPL work, the GPL applies and the new work
> > needs to be GPL.
>
> and:
>
> > but only a song. If nvidia's driver only uses some simple
> > declarations from include files and no large (>7 lines? >10lines?
> > what's large?) inline functions AND the nvidia driver uses only the
> > standard interfaces to hook into the Linux kernel, then it's not a
> > derivative work and nvidia gets to choose the license.
>
> It has long been held that linking to GPL code is suffient to
> consitute 'derived work' status, hence the existence of the LGPL.
>
> The NVidia shim makes use of several kernel subsystems, the PCI
> device layer, the VM, the module system (well really, the kernel
> makes of use of the functions the module provides :) ), IRQ
> subsystem, the VFS, etc.. These systems are rather large bodies of
> code - without which the NVidia kernel driver could not work.
>
> So I am not quite sure on what basis one could argue the NVidia
> driver is not a derivative work, and hence it seems to me the NVidia
> driver is technically in material breach of GPL.
>
> You seem to be basing your opinion on:
>
> "the nvidia driver uses only the standard interfaces to hook into
> the Linux kernel"
>
> How are the standard interfaces not covered by the GPL?
>
> I know Linus' has often posted to l-k that he doesnt care about
> binary only modules as long as they stick to the exported interfaces.
> However, are all the kernel developers agreed on this? And if so, can
> this exception be formalised and put into the COPYING file? If not,
> then is NVidia not in breach of the kernel's licence?
>
> > Rik
>
> regards,
> --
> Paul Jakma paul@clubi.ie paul@jakma.org Key ID: 64A2FF6A
> warning: do not ever send email to spam@dishone.st
> Fortune:
> Programmers do it bit by bit.
>
> -
> 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/
>