Re: Would I be violating the GPL?

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Alan Cox and others have publicly stated that drivers, if complied stand alone with NO DEPENDENCIES ON KERNEL HEADERS (i.e. they do not incorporate in any way any kernel headers or source code tagged GPL) do not violate the GPL when provided with Linux. DSFS, NVidia, and several folks build kernel modules which are stand alone and are not objected to by the majority of folks.

If these drivers include kernel headers as part of the build, then the drivers violate the GPL. Period. Check the code. If the vendor is including **ANY** GPL kernel headers, then they are required to open source the drivers. There are some zealots and GPL bigots that disagree with this, but Linux folks seem to be reasonable on this point.

Jeff

Alexander Fisher wrote:

Hello.

A supplier of a PCI mezzanine digital IO card has provided a linux 2.4
driver as source code.  They have provided this code source with a
license stating I won't redistribute it in anyway.
My concern is that if I build this code into a module, I won't be able
to distribute it to customers without violating either the GPL (by not
distributing the source code), or the proprietary source code license
as currently imposed by the supplier.
From what I have read, this concern is only valid if the binary module
is considered to be a 'derived work' of the kernel.  The module source
directly includes the following kernel headers :

#include <linux/kernel.h>
#include <linux/types.h>
#include <linux/fs.h>
#include <linux/errno.h>
#include <linux/wrapper.h>
#include <linux/module.h>
#include <linux/iobuf.h>
#include <linux/highmem.h>
#include <asm/uaccess.h>
#include <linux/mm.h>
#include <asm/unistd.h>

Does this make the compiled module a derived work?  Are the 'static
inlines' from the headers substantial enough?

I really want to have a clear understanding of the issues before
contacting the supplier.  Any advice would be very much appreciated.
Kind regards,
Alex
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