Re: GPL issues

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On Apr 11, 2006, at 11:49:44, Ramakanth Gunuganti wrote:
Thanks for the replies, talking to a lawyer seems to be too stringent a requirement to even evaluate Linux. Who would be the ultimate authority to give definitive answers to these questions?

Once again, as I said before, a lawyer. There are currently very few GPL-related precedents, and none on that particular topic. The best place to get advice is a lawyer. Think of it as though you were licensing some code from another proprietary company for inclusion in your product; there you would _definitely_ talk to a lawyer. The "ultimate authority" is your local/regional/national courts, a local lawyer is best able to use your particular set of laws to interpret what your courts are likely to decide and advise you accordingly. Nobody on this list can give you that kind of legal advice, at least not for free.

Since it's the Linux kernel that's under GPLv2, any work done here should be released under GPLv2.

Any "Derivative Work" of the Linux kernel must be licensed under the GPL. The definition of "Derivative Work" is hard to resolve in detail. Most kernel developers (including Linus himself) believe that all kernel modules are derivative works due to the unique and variable nature of the in-kernel APIs. It is almost always held that userspace-only programs are _not_ derivative works. On the other hand, if you export some kernel-internal API directly to userspace through a syscall, any program that uses it might be considered a derivative work.

Can we just claim that part of the package is under GPL and only release the source code for the kernel portions.

It really depends, which is why I suggest you contact a lawyer versed in this field. Virtually none of the people on this list can give you any definitive answers, especially without access to the product itself, and even then they would most likely just tell you of their personal opinion which has no legal weight whatsoever.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett
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