Re: [hsflinux] [PATCH] Blacklist binary-only modules lying about their license

David Lang
2004-05-03T01:21:42Z

except that this brings up the issue of if the GPL will allow this
linking to take place at all.

my understanding of what RMS and the FSF have said is that they don't
believe that this is allowed at all.

David Lang

On Mon, 3 May 2004, Giuliano Colla wrote:

> Date: Mon, 03 May 2004 00:26:13 +0200
> From: Giuliano Colla <copeca@copeca.dsnet.it>
> To: Geert Uytterhoeven <geert@linux-m68k.org>
> Cc: Carl-Daniel Hailfinger <c-d.hailfinger.kernel.2004@gmx.net>,
> Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>, hsflinux@lists.mbsi.ca,
> Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>, Andrew Morton <akpm@osdl.org>,
> Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
> Subject: Re: [hsflinux] [PATCH] Blacklist binary-only modules lying about
> their license
>
> Geert Uytterhoeven ha scritto:
>
> >On Fri, 30 Apr 2004, Giuliano Colla wrote:
> >
> >
> >>It may make sense not to have anything left in the GPL directory in a
> >>binary only .rpm package, because once linked GPL parts cannot be told
> >>apart from non-GPL ones.
> >>
> >>
> >
> >When speaking about loadable kernel modules: yes they can! That's what
> >modinfo(8) is for!
> >
> >Oh wait, someone played tricks with a \0 character...
> >
> >Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
> >
> >
> >
> What I mean is that in a binary rpm you have binaries which link
> together GPL and non GPL code. There's not such a thing as a GPL
> binaries to put in the GPL directory. This holds true whether they play
> tricks or not. If you want to see the GPL'd code you must download the
> source package.
> You may blame them for playing tricks with \0 character, but you can't
> blame them for an empty GPL directory in the binary package, when you
> find it properly populated in the source package.
>
> Groetje,
> -----
> Giuliano Colla
>
> Whenever people agree with me, I always feel I must be wrong (O. Wilde)
>
>
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