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

Phillip Susi
2006-03-09T16:30:45Z

Luke-Jr wrote:
> Or Linux can remain GPL'd, which prohibits binary drivers *legally*, and back
> this by keeping a non-stable API which prohibits binary drivers
> *technically*.

If binary drivers are illegal, then why have ATI and nvidia not been
sued yet?

Interacting with the kernel does not make your software a derived work.
A derived work is if you make your own kernel that is very close to a
straight copy of the Linux kernel. The right to create new works that
interact with others ( and therefore, require some understanding of how
the other work operates ) is specifically protected by the US copyright
act.

This is why it is legal to reverse engineer a binary driver to gain an
understanding of how the hardware operates, publish that information,
and then use that information to create new software to operate that
hardware.