Re: Module Licensing?

Timur Tabi
2001-10-31T17:29:52Z

Rik van Riel wrote:

> Since your program, which happens to consist of one open
> source part and one proprietary part, is partly a derived
> work from the kernel source (by using kernel header files
> and the inline functions in it) your whole work must be
> distributed under the GPL.

I contest your meaning of the word "work". The open source portion of my
module is one "work", and the closed source portion is another "work". I
could deliver these two works as separate tarballs, if I wanted.

Not only that, but the closed-source portion of my driver is not derived from
any GPL program, so the phrase "contains or is derived from the Program" does
not apply to it, because it:

1. Does not contain any part of any GPL Program
2. Is not derived from any GPL Program

>>Our open source bits are GPL because they are "derived" from the kernel
>>source, which is also GPL.
>
> "open source bits" ... from "the work as a whole" ?

The point I'm trying to make is that I can play the semantics game very
easily, and still not be forced to open-source the closed-source portions of
my driver. Because of the way Linux loads modules, I could take all the
open-source portions and link them into one .o file, and then insmod that .o
file without any problems. Then the closed-source portion would also be
insmod'ed. The only issue is that closed-source portion would fail to load if
the open-source portion is not already loaded.