| lists.openwall.net | lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC | |
|
Open Source and information security mailing list archives
| ||
|
Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:41:41 +0100 (MET) From: Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@...ux01.gwdg.de> To: Jon K Hellan <jon.kare.hellan@...nett.no> cc: linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org Subject: Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers On Feb 16 2007 10:44, Jon K Hellan wrote: > Xavier Bestel wrote: >> On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 21:48 -0800, v j wrote: >> > We only get crap because no one here yet knows how to interpret >> > proprietary modules loaded into the kernel. >> >> The proprietary modules where only a tiny wrapper is linux-specific and >> the rest is cross-platform are in a grey area, yes. >> But your modules, written specifically for linux but distributed as >> binary-only, are specifically what the people choosing the GPL want to >> avoid. They are a derivative work, and are, as such, illegal under the >> GPL. > > If they are a derivative work, they are illegal under the GPL. However, it is > not clear that their being written specifically *for* Linux is sufficient to > make them derivative works *of* Linux. Who knows, perhaps there's a public domain interface that wraps linux kernel function calls into bsd functions, so you can always "successfully" argue the source code is not only for Linux. However, I think that precompiled .ko files are _much more_ tied to Linux (in short, supporting your point) plus a specific architecture. Jan -- - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@...r.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
Powered by blists - more mailing lists