Re: ndiswrapper and GPL-only symbols redux

Måns Rullgård
2008-01-29T23:25:46Z

Adrian Bunk <bunk@kernel.org> writes:

> On Tue, Jan 29, 2008 at 04:22:45PM -0500, Pavel Roskin wrote:
>> Hello!
>>
>> It have come to my attention that a patch has been committed to the
>> kernel with the explicit purpose of tainting ndiswrapper - the kernel
>> module allowing Windows NDIS drivers for Ethernet and Wireless cards to
>> be used by the kernel.
>>...
>> Just to reiterate some points from the old discussion:
>>...
>> - no copyright violation is involved, as Windows drivers are not derived
>> from Linux sources
>>...
>
> It is interesting that someone posting with an @gnu.org address claims
> that dynamic linking of not GPLv2 compatible code into GPLv2 code was
> not a copyright violation.

As long as you don't distribute /proc/kcore, I can't see how the GPL
would have any say in the matter. The Windows drivers are (unrelated
violations aside) clearly not derived from GPL code.

IANAL

--
Måns Rullgård
mans@mansr.com