From: "Les Mikesell" <lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx>
On Sat, 2006-11-25 at 20:04, Peter Gordon wrote:
On Sat, 2006-11-25 at 17:05 -0600, Les Mikesell wrote:
> What does 'likely' mean? First you'd have to show that a device
> driver is a derived work from the kernel in copyright terms, since
> that is all that the GPL can cover - which is a pretty odd concept
> to begin with.
Every device driver includes common kernel headers without which they
would be useless. This makes them derived works, as I understand it.
Back when AT&T sued BSDI in '93 or so they weren't able to make
the point that copying the header files (which Linux necessarily
also duplicates on the user interface side) was copyright
infringement. It doesn't make much sense to provide an interface
and assert that the only possible way to use it is illegal. And
I doubt that the GNU folks really want to encourage the idea
of interface copyrights - or that they can get away with
pretending that this is something else.
Header files are likened to a laundry list. You can't copyright a
laundry list and make it stick. Ditto for a telephone book's contents.
{^_^}
