Re: GPL Violation?

Alan Cox
2006-08-17T11:04:51Z

Ar Iau, 2006-08-17 am 05:36 -0400, ysgrifennodd Patrick McFarland:
> > If a driver author doesn't want
> > to publish under the terms of GPL, an implementation in userspace may
> > make it possible to avoid linking with GPL code.
>
> But doesn't that force the GPL code to rely on closed source code, and not
> function properly without it? I remember a part in the GPL about not allowing
> that, but I can't seem to find it atm.

It shouldn't generally be a grey area but that is why the Linux kernel
has always had this clarification in COPYING about the interpretation

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.