Les Mikesell wrote: > On Sun, 2006-11-26 at 14:21, Ian Malone wrote: [...] >> ? The code is covered by GPL 2. > > Beg your pardon, but the COPYING file included with the > last kernel source I saw (admittedly a 2.4.x...) was > not the same as a stock GPL 2 and points out that programs > that interface with kernel system calls are not > derived works. Here's the way to diff this easily: diff -ubBw <(wget -q -O - http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.txt) \ <(wget -q -O - http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/COPYING) Pipe that to your favorite editor and you'll see only minor cosmetic differences, and this note at the start of the kernel COPYING file: NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work". Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the linux kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it. Linus Torvalds This is not an exception for modules, but a clarification for user-space programs - or so says Linus in the many emails cited in COPYING.modules in the Fedora kernel documentation: http://cvs.fedora.redhat.com/viewcvs/*checkout*/rpms/kernel/devel/COPYING.modules?rev=1.5 IANAL and can't say I'm up on all the points of this debate, but hopefully the sources above will help provide some hard facts for the fire. I think that Alan's pot->kettle->black statement was accurate in context. It's clear there is more than a little contention that binary modules violate the GPL and the Ubuntu folks can't claim the high and mighty ground here when they're planning to enable them by default in at least some cases (or so I've read -- corrections welcome). -- Todd OpenPGP -> KeyID: 0xBEAF0CE3 | URL: www.pobox.com/~tmz/pgp ====================================================================== Damn you vile woman, you've impeded my work since the day I escaped your vile womb! -- Stewie Griffin
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