RE: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?

Linus Torvalds
2003-12-10T19:20:39Z

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Andre Hedrick wrote:
>
> So given RMS and company state OSL and GPL are not compatable, how does
> the two exist in the current kernel? Earlier, iirc, there were comments
> about dual license conflicts.

They don't "co-exist".

Some parts of the kernel are dual-licensed, which basically means that the
author says "you can use this code under _either_ the GPL or the OSL".

When used in the kernel, the GPL is the one that matters. But being
dual-licensed means that the same thing may be used somewhere else under
another license (so you could use that particular instance of code under
the OSL in some _other_ project where the OSL would be ok).

This is pretty common. We have several drivers that are dual-GPL/BSD, and
there are some parts that are dual GPL/proprietary (which is just another
way of saying that the author is licensing it somewhere else under a
proprietary model - common for hardware manufacturers that write their
own driver and _also_ use it somewhere else: when in Linux, they license
it under the GPL, when somewhere else, they have some other license).

This isn't Linux-specific - you'll find the same thing in other projects.
Most well-known perhaps perl - which is dual Artistic/GPL (I think.
That's from memory).

And ghostscript was (is?) dual-licensed too (proprietary/GPL).

Linus