Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

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No its not. It wasn't common knowledge 3 years ago when we chose Linux
as an embedded platform. If it indeed is common knowledge that
loadable modules in Linux have to be open-source then it is very
probable that we wouldn't have chosen Linux as the platform of choice.
If this indeed is the case and is common knowledge, then I predict
that Linux will soon drop in popularity as the OS of choice in
embedded systems.

On 2/14/07, Lee Revell <[email protected]> wrote:
Um... it's been common knowledge for years that the legal status of
non-GPL kernel modules is an open issue.  Specifically, whether a
device driver written for the Linux kernel is a derived work of the
kernel.  Sounds like you didn't do your homework 3 years ago.

Why did you assume that linking a non-GPL module into the GPL Linux
kernel was legal?  You have read the GPL right?

Lee

On 2/15/07, v j <[email protected]> wrote:
> This is in reference to the following thread:
>
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/14/63
>
> I am not sure if this is ever addressed in LKML, but linux is _very_
> popular in the embedded space. We (an embedded vendor) chose Linux 3
> years back because of its lack of royalty model, robustness and
> availability of infinite number of open-source tools.
>
> We recently decided to move to Linux 2.6 for our next product, mainly
> because Linux has worked so well for us in the past, and we would like
> to move up to keep up with the latest and greatest.
>
> However in moving to  2.6, we noticed a number of alarming things.
> Porting drivers over from devfs to udev, though easy raised a number
> of alarming issues. Driver's no longer could dynamically allocate
> their MAJOR/MINOR numbers. Doing so would mean they would have to use
> sysfs. However it seems that sysfs (and the class_ interface) is only
> available to GPL modules. This is very concerning. The drivers which
> we have written over the last three years are suddenly under threat.
> We don't mind statically assigning MAJOR/MINOR numbers to our drivers.
> We can do this and modify our user space applications too.
>
> However we have a worrying trend here. If at some point it becomes
> illegal to load our modules into the linux kernel, then it is
> unacceptable to us. We would have been better off choosing VxWorks or
> OSE 3 years ago when we made an OS choice. The fact that Linux is
> becoming more and more closed is very very alarming.
>
> vj.
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