Re: GPL Violation?

Arjan van de Ven
2006-08-17T06:54:19Z

On Thu, 2006-08-17 at 02:42 -0400, Patrick McFarland wrote:
> On Thursday 17 August 2006 01:48, Anonymous User wrote:
> > I work for a company that will be developing an embedded Linux based
> > consumer electronic device.
> >
> > I believe that new kernel modules will be written to support I/O
> > peripherals and perhaps other things. I don't know the details right
> > now. What I am trying to do is get an idea of what requirements there
> > are to make the source code available under the GPL.
>
> I am not a lawyer, and I suggest your company speak with one before doing
> this. (And most likely, someone from the list will correct me if I get
> something wrong).
>
> However, your company only has to release any code they use, preferably in the
> form of unmodified tarballs (pointing to project websites for downloads isn't
> valid anymore) plus patches against said unmodified tarballs if modified. If
> not modified, you still have to release the unmodified tarballs.
>
> They don't have to release source code for any module you wrote from scratch
> themselves, but said modules cannot say they are GPL (ie, they have to poison
> the kernel).

Just as a warning: This is your own legal opinion/advice, one which is
apparently not shared with many other kernel developers, including me.
For example see Greg's OLS keynote:
http://www.kroah.com/log/2006/07/23/#ols_2006_keynote
or some of Linus' emails on this topic:
http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/*checkout*/rpms/kernel/devel/COPYING.modules?rev=1.5

I hope you have talked to a lawyer about your advice, but I sort of
doubt it since your answer doesn't sound like something a lawyer will
tell you (it sure doesn't match what the various lawyers I talked to
told me, not at all)

Anyway the best advice for anyone who asks such a question is to go talk
to a lawyer, and probably he should take a few of those links printed
out with him just to alert the lawyer about the controversial nature of
things.

Greetings,
Arjan van de Ven
--
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com