Re: blatant GPL violation of ext2 and reiserfs filesystem drivers

["Jeff V. Merkey" <jmerkey@wolfmountaingroup.com>]

Steven Rostedt wrote:

> On Thu, 2005-12-22 at 13:01 -0500, Kyle Moffett wrote:
>  
>
> > On Dec 22, 2005, at 11:08, Robert W. Fuller wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > Please see the following thread:
> > >
> > > http://www.opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=2132&tstart=0x
> > >
> > > Sorry I didn't get around to reporting this sooner, but at least  
> > > the guilty party has had plenty of time to fail to repent.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Rob
> > >      
> > This case looks about as black and white as it gets (although IANAL),  
> > so I'm adding gpl-violations.org-legal to the CC list.
> >    
>
> I'm not sure this is the case here or not, but it definitely brings up
> an interesting question.
>
> Since the dynamic loading of binary modules into Linux seems to be a
> gray area, since if I give you a binary module that loads into Linux,
> but except for the API found in the header files, the module contains no
> GPL code. Is it bound to the GPL?  This is a rhetorical question, please
> don't answer it.
>
> Now the real question:  If one were to have an operating system, and set
> up a layer that simulated the API of Linux, such that Linux binary
> modules could be loaded, is _that_ a violation of the GPL?  

No , it is not.  It's called "reverse engineering".

Jeff

> IOW, one
> would only distribute to you a system that has no GPL code, and only
> simulates an API, which is legal otherwise Samba wouldn't exist. But the
> user has the option of compiling a Linux module to get the benefits from
> it.  Sort of a ndiswrapper in reverse!
>
> -- Steve
>
>
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