Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

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Ben Nizette wrote:
v j 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.

[...]

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.

Question to the world here: Distros make, as a matter of course, a series of modifications to the Linux Kernel so that their modules or features work. What stops VJ making a patchset which effectively s/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL/EXPORT_SYMBOL/g 's the kernel source then distributing that under the GPL? He then supplies his un-GPL'd modules to the world which just happen to only run on the modified kernel. I've read the GPL of course (IANAL though) and I can't see what this violates except the /spirit/ of the license. Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly against anyone doing what I just mentioned, I believe it to be immoral taking someone's GPL'd code and mangling it in such a way. I speak as an embedded developer myself whose company decided that running our code under Linux and distributing our code under the GPL was far preferable to running closed-source software on a closed-source platform.

The best bet would be to read up on lots of past discussions related to
exactly these kinds of questions, then ask your Lawyer.

Rhetorical question: what stops me from taking somebody's copyrighted
work, stripping the copyrights or falsely claiming to have a license
to redistribute it, then selling it?

--
SUSE Labs, Novell Inc.
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