RE: [future of drivers?] a proposal for binary drivers.

David Schwartz
2006-03-13T05:17:10Z

> I'm not sure how the analogy of a toilet fits either the linux kernel
> or the idea that I'm somehow obligated to work without compensation so
> some corporation can make a profit I get no share in.

You are not obligated to work without compensation or to let some
corporation use your work to make a profit that you get no share in.
However, if you choose to give your work away without first getting an
agreement from the recipient, you are willingly giving up lots of control
that you would otherwise have.

I would strongly caution you against believing anyone who tells you
different, no matter how much you want to hear it. The facts are:

1) A person who lawfully acquires a work without agreeing otherwise gains
the right to the ordinary and expected use of that work.

2) The ordinary and expected use of a library is to produce applications
that use that library.

3) The ordinary and expected use of the RedHat 'linux-kernel' package is to
develop kernel drivers and produce binaries of them.

4) Copyright does not allow you to own every way to do some specific thing,
you need a patent for that. Any application that uses library X or any
driver for kernel Y is a specific thing. Copyright only applies when there
are numerous ways to do the same thing or express the same idea. Drivers for
different operating systems are different ideas. You cannot use copyright to
lock out someone from doing a particular thing, only from doing that thing
the same way you did.

5) There is no right under copyright for authors of original works to limit
the distribution of lawfully-created derivative works to those with the
right to use the original work.

6) All of this is copyright law and applies whether or not anyone agrees to
the GPL or any other agreement, so nothing those agreements says can change
this.

DS