Re: [future of drivers?] a proposal for binary drivers.

[Phillip Susi <psusi@cfl.rr.com>]

Luke-Jr wrote:
> Or Linux can remain GPL'd, which prohibits binary drivers *legally*, and back 
> this by keeping a non-stable API which prohibits binary drivers 
> *technically*.
If binary drivers are illegal, then why have ATI and nvidia not been 
sued yet?
Interacting with the kernel does not make your software a derived work. 
 A derived work is if you make your own kernel that is very close to a 
straight copy of the Linux kernel.  The right to create new works that 
interact with others ( and therefore, require some understanding of how 
the other work operates ) is specifically protected by the US copyright 
act.
This is why it is legal to reverse engineer a binary driver to gain an 
understanding of how the hardware operates, publish that information, 
and then use that information to create new software to operate that 
hardware.

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