Re: People, not GPL [was: Re: Driver Model]

Andre Hedrick
2003-09-13T18:37:17Z

On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Timothy Miller wrote:

>
>
> David Schwartz wrote:
>
> > However, some people seem to be arguing that the GPL_ONLY symbols are in
> > fact a license enforcement technique. If that's true, then when they
> > distribute their code, they are putting additional restrictions not in the
> > GPL on it. That is a GPL violation.
>
> Agreed. GPL_ONLY is not a license restriction. It is a technical issue.

Technical if and only if it did not remove the functionality of the
symbol when called.

Since it remove the ability to call and it work, creates a restriction of
usaged. Usage being, one calls the function and it works.

I have not decided yet to expose one of the grossest example of API thieft
yet, but will do so in time.

> Binary-only modules are inherently untrustworthy (no open code review)
> and undebuggable. It is therefore of technical merit to restrict both
> what they can access in the kernel (GPL_ONLY) and limit how much kernel
> developers should have to tolerate when they're involved.

Who cares, it reports a tainted and the community says, thank you have a
nice day.

> But beyond this, there are some social issues. If someone finds a way
> to work around this mechanism, they are breaking things to everyone
> else's detriment. For a commercial entity to violate the GPL_ONLY
> barrier is an insult to kernel developers AND to their customers who
> will have trouble getting problems solved.

So when is the last time a business sent it problems to LKML to be
solved? If I were a customer of such a company, I would be gone.

> So, if a company works around GPL_ONLY, are they violating the GPL
> license? Probably not. Does that make it OKAY? Probably not.

GPL_ONLY violate usage, thus it violate GPL.
Not a hard concept.
Also what if a company produces a "private gpl" product?
Open Source to customers but not to the world?

Nan, nobody would do that silly idea.

> This is like finding a way to give a user space program access to kernel
> resources. There are barriers put in place for a REASON because people
> make mistakes when they write software. If no one did, we wouldn't have
> any need for memory protection, would we.

Stop, the laughing hurts "memory protection" "vm" ...

Cheers,

Andre