linux-kernel - Re: General Discussion about GPLness

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Message-ID: <7896b0b9-c12e-5327-f531-95097cf04eca@tuxoid.at>
Date:   Mon, 24 Feb 2020 00:46:03 +0100
From:   Bernd Petrovitsch <bernd@...oid.at>
To:     Stephan von Krawczynski <skraw.ml@...net.com>
Cc:     linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, bruce@...ens.com
Subject: Re: General Discussion about GPLness

Hi all!

On 23/02/2020 21:47, Stephan von Krawczynski wrote:
[...]
> I do understand why you cannot enter a discussion with your real name, as most

I ignore folks who don't use their real name - this is since Usenet
times an indication for a troll ...

> of your input is of zero quality - and below.
[...]
>                                                              But our story is
> about kernel modules, something everybody is free to write and publish, with a

... publish implicitly with a GPLv2 or compatible license ...

> defined and open interface for interaction. No kernel code is modified in that

And that's a point which is completely wrong: the only *defined*
interface of the kernel is sys-calls, /proc and similar. And all of this
is from user-space to kernel-space and back.

There is no (and never was) a "defined interface" within the kernel
(inter-operating in kernel space) in any direction simply because the
kernel-internal (infra)structure changes more or less constantly - some
may call that evolution;-)

And I don't get what an "open interface" here couls seriously mean. You
surely don't want to call the list of the GPL_EXPORTed C functions
(which may change from one kernel version to the next) an "open
interface" (whatever that should suggest).

At most the list of GPL_EXPORTed C functions is a de-facto interface and
that may change from one git-commit to the next.

> sense. But you fail to understand that.
> Hopefully others here do. I do not expect them to stand up and jump into a
> discussion where you are a part of. But I hope people start to think about it

And you are barking up the wrong tree. The discussion has to happen in
the ZFS-world so that they fix their license if they want to interface
with any GPL software (without sys-calls etc. in between - WTF it works
via FUSE) like they seen to do now.

And no, I'm not a lawyer so I won't comment more on the law-aspects -
the above is my short summary of discussions hereover about license
clashes etc. over the last decades ...

[ Full quote deleted - pls do not top-post]

MfG,
	Bernd
-- 
Bernd Petrovitsch                  Email : bernd@...rovitsch.priv.at
                     LUGA : http://www.luga.at