On 2/17/06, Joel Rees <rees@xxxxxxx> wrote: > 2006-02-17 (金) の 01:57 -0800 に Michael A. Peters さんは書きました: > > Having a discussion on the GPL - and the broadcom driver in Linksys > > routers came up. > > > > I'm taking the position that since it is a kernel module, it modifies > > the kernel when the kernel loads it - and thus, it is no different than > > if they were shipping a static kernel with the module compiled in, and > > thus they (Linksys) are in violation of the GPL because they are > > shipping a modified GPL product (the kernel) without releasing the > > source to their modifications. > > As someone else has pointed out you can only really take action if you're a contributor to the code that's being used (which is why the FSF are so strict about copyright assignments for their stuff). If you're a minor contributor the most I think you could do is withdraw your code from the kernel (which you'd be in your rights to do if you could show the kernel people had contributed to licence violation). > > Other arguments are that the driver uses the kernel and is not a > > modification to the kernel. But I don't see how it could be that way, I > > see it as adding functionality to the Linux kernel (the ability to talk > > to the broadcom chipset) and as such, they are shipping a modified > > kernel without also shipping the source. > > An alternative view is that the kernel is designed to use modules and the people who created it designed it like that. It is a grey area, seemingly intentionally so on the parts of the FSF and Linus (and for different reasons I'd guess). Making something a grey area is not going to help their position if someone does end up in a courtroom. > > Any GPL license gurus have comment? > > > > The implications of my argument are bigger than Linksys - anyone who > > ships a non GPL compatible driver _with_ the Linux kernel would be in > > violation of the GPL - including distributions that ship with the nvidia > > drivers. It wouldn't make the the modules themselves non distributable, > > just that they are non distributable with the kernel. > > > > I'm not positive my interpretation of the GPL is correct though, so I'd > > like comments from people who know it better than I do. > > Less a question of what the GPL says and more a question of how the > authors of the kernel intend it, from what I understand. It's in a gray > area, and Stallman would probably agree with you, but is Stallman one of > the copyright owners of the kernel? > If he is he's certainly not one of the leading ones. It was mentionned in a UK magazine (Linux Developeer and User I think) that there was a recent dust-up on the kernel mailing list on this issue. Anyone here follow it? -- imalone
