linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] USB: mark USB drivers as being GPL only

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Message-ID: <20080209175051.59715a17@weinigel.se>
Date:	Sat, 9 Feb 2008 17:50:51 +0100
From:	Christer Weinigel <christer@...nigel.se>
To:	"Pekka Enberg" <penberg@...helsinki.fi>
Cc:	"Hans-Jürgen Koch" <hjk@...utronix.de>,
	"David Newall" <davidn@...idnewall.com>,
	"Marcel Holtmann" <marcel@...tmann.org>,
	"Diego Zuccato" <diego@...llo.alma.unibo.it>,
	"Greg KH" <greg@...ah.com>, linux-usb@...r.kernel.org,
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] USB: mark USB drivers as being GPL only

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008 17:41:00 +0200
"Pekka Enberg" <penberg@...helsinki.fi> wrote:

> On Feb 9, 2008 5:13 PM, Christer Weinigel <christer@...nigel.se>
> wrote:
> > But lets say that the b-tree code uses Linux-only primitives such as
> > kmalloc or spinlocks, and that I wrote the code specifically for the
> > Linux kernel, does that make it into a derivative work?
> >
> > What if I do a trivial replace of the kmalloc calls with malloc and
> > the spinlock calls with pthread locks instead, has my code been
> > forever tainted by being written for Linux so that I can't do that
> > anymore? What if I go the other way and write my code using the
> > posix functions to begin with and do the equally trivial replace of
> > malloc with kmalloc?
> 
> As the copyright owner, you're free to distribute the original parts
> as you wish as long as it doesn't contain anything that is derived
> work. 

Ok good.

> So, when you remove those kmalloc/spin_lock calls, you're
> _obviously not_ tainted. But that doesn't mean you're free to
> distribute it when it _does_ contain derived work. 

So it magically becomes a derived work if I do a:

#define malloc(n) kmalloc(n, 0)
#define pthread_mutex_lock(l) spin_lock(l)

at the beginning of the file?  My guess is that it is much to trivial
to be considered a creative expression and thus would not be covered by
copyright.  Meaning it would not be a derivative work.

> Besides, a device
> driver can't even be compared to something as trivial as b-tree
> implementation that uses kmalloc/spin_lock in terms of "is it derived
> work or not."

A device driver isn't that hard either.  I can write a device driver
with a hand tied behind my back, to write a good balancing tree, I'd
have to spend a lot more time reading up on algorithms.  So "trivial" is
a matter of background.

And once again, I don't believe API copyrights are valid, because in
that case Wine would have been sued out of the water a long time ago.

> Thanks for the straw man, though!

*sigh* Now you're just being insulting.  

  /Christer
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