From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263806AbTLECGr (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Dec 2003 21:06:47 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263809AbTLECGr (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Dec 2003 21:06:47 -0500 Received: from mail.scitechsoft.com ([63.195.13.67]:5343 "EHLO mail.scitechsoft.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263806AbTLECGn (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Dec 2003 21:06:43 -0500 From: "Kendall Bennett" Organization: SciTech Software, Inc. To: Nick Piggin Date: Thu, 04 Dec 2003 18:07:59 -0800 MIME-Version: 1.0 Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? CC: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <3FCF77FF.18046.447204E6@localhost> In-reply-to: <3FCFCC3E.8050008@cyberone.com.au> References: <20031204235055.62846.qmail@web21503.mail.yahoo.com> X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Windows (v4.02) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-description: Mail message body Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Nick Piggin wrote: > What about specifically a module that includes the Linux Kernel's > headers and uses its APIs? I don't think you could say that is > definitely not a derivative work. You cannot copyright an API - people have been down that path before in the proprietry software community and have not succeeded. You can copyright the code in the header files, but does simply using the header files to build a program mean that the driver is now infected? If the header files include lots and lots of inline functions that ended up compiled into the code, then maybe. Then again, it appears that most developers are using wrapped to avoid this situation, such that their private code does not include any Linux headers, only the GPL'ed wrapper. So we go in circles again. Regards, --- Kendall Bennett Chief Executive Officer SciTech Software, Inc. Phone: (530) 894 8400 http://www.scitechsoft.com ~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~