Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?

Kendall Bennett
2003-12-05T19:23:38Z

Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote:

> On Fri, 05 Dec 2003 10:44:02 PST, Kendall Bennett said:
>
> > Right, and by extension of the same argument you cannot use kernel
> > headers to create non-GPL'ed binaries that run IN USER SPACE! Just
> > because a program runs in user space does not mean that it is not a
> > dervived work.
>
> That's a bad idea for technical reasons too - how often do we have
> to tell people not to use kernel headers from userspace?
> glibc-kernheaders (and whatever non-RedHat boxes call it) exists
> for a reason.
>
> Interestingly enough, at least on my Fedora box, 'rpm -qi' reports
> glibc as LGPL, but glibc-kernheaders as GPL, which seems right to
> me - linking against glibc gives the LGPL semantics as we'd want,
> but forces userspace that's poking in the kernel to be GPL as a
> derived work....

If glibc-kernheaders (used only if you do not have real kernel source
code installed) is GPL, and many of the standard Linux include files end
up including either headers from glibc-kernheaders (or the real Linux
kernel source if you have it installed and symlinked), then by extension
the glibc library built for Linux must be GPL as would all programs
linked against it.

Regards,

---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

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