On Fri, 2006-02-17 at 08:03 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote: > On Fri, 2006-02-17 at 03:57, Michael A. Peters wrote: > > 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. > > Regardless of what the GPL does or doesn't say, it only has > effect based on copyright law, so a violation must match > the legal definition of a derived work. The point is - you only have permission to distribute the kernel if you follow the GPL. Whether your module is a derived work doesn't matter, it modified the function of the kernel and therefore the kernel you are distributing is a derived work - so the module has to be released under a GPL compatible license or else you don't have permission to distribute the kernel. You may still have permission to distribute your module - it's the kernel where I see there being a potential issue.
