From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263893AbTLEHg0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Dec 2003 02:36:26 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263902AbTLEHg0 (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Dec 2003 02:36:26 -0500 Received: from as13-5-5.has.s.bonet.se ([217.215.179.23]:44692 "EHLO K-7.stesmi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263893AbTLEHgZ (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Dec 2003 02:36:25 -0500 Message-ID: <3FD0361F.1030609@stesmi.com> Date: Fri, 05 Dec 2003 08:39:11 +0100 From: Stefan Smietanowski User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.5) Gecko/20031007 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Kendall Bennett CC: andersen@codepoet.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? References: <20031204235055.62846.qmail@web21503.mail.yahoo.com> <3FCF77FF.5814.44720535@localhost> In-Reply-To: <3FCF77FF.5814.44720535@localhost> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Kendall Bennett wrote: > Erik Andersen wrote: > > >>On Thu Dec 04, 2003 at 03:50:55PM -0800, Paul Adams wrote: >> >>>Unless actual Linux code is incorporated in a binary >>>distribution >>>in some form, I don't see how you can claim >>>infringement of the >>>copyright on Linux code, at least in the U.S. >> >>A kernel module is useless without a Linux kernel in which it can >>be loaded. Once loaded, it becomes not merely an adjunct, but an >>integrat part of the Linux kernel. Further, it clearly >>"incorporate[s] a portion of the copyrighted work" since it can >>only operate within the context of the kernel by utilizing Linux >>kernel function calls. > > > But what about the case I stated earlier for a driver that is completely > binary portable between different operating systems. Hence the low level > portion of the driver is not Linux specific at all, and in fact not even > designed specifically with Linux in mind. That muddies the waters even > more, and even Linus has said he would believe such a driver to be OK. You mean kind of like a program being compiled by a compiler? The program isn't designed for a specific platform/cpu/os/whatnot but when compiled it's specific to a platform/cpu/os/whatnot. With the "program" being the low level stuff and the extra cruft all compilers include being the glue. // Stefan