grow up :-/ [LWN.net]

grow up :-/

Posted May 16, 2006 18:29 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252)
In reply to: grow up :-/ by gvy
Parent article: GPL concerns halt Kororaa live CD (NewsForge)

The drivers are fine to ship...

100%, no problem (at least if they really have no GPLed code in binary blob)

...the kernel is fine to ship...

100% correct, kernel is kernel, GPL-licensed and all that

...on the same CD.

Um, no - that'll be GPL violation.

Why those who whine about licenses and responsibilities are routinely not even reading those licenses?

If you have read GPL and know it so well then explain how this CD (derived work of Linux kernel!!!) can be distributed if part of it (binary drivers) are not GPLed ? How can you comply with item 2 of GPL requirement ? Note: as special exception GPLv2 allows creation of works where GPLed code and unrelated non-GPLed code are put on the same physical medium. This is indulgence of CPLv2 - GPLv1 disallowed such distribution (you were unable to distribute gcc with *bsd kernel back then). Can you honestly say that kernel and kernel driver are unrelated works ??? That kernel driver (with glue code, of course!) is "work not based on the kernel" ? This is kind of hard to justify, you know...

Once more. There are three components:
1. ATI/nVidia's binary blob (presumably not-kernel derived).
2. Liberally-licensed glue code.
3. Linux kernel (GPLv2 licensed).
What GPLv2 is saying is that: put any two on your CD (or in your box) - you can not have all there. If you take 1&2 - GPL is not in play; if you take 1&3 - "mere aggregation" applies (since 1&3 are totally unrelated), if you distribute 2&3 - no problem (the whole thing is considered to be GPLv2-licensed), if you are trying to distribute 1&2&3 - you are in trouble: 2 is related to 3 and thus combinarion must be GPLv2 licensed and 1 is surely related to combination of 2&3 and thus must be GPLv2 compatible as well! But it's not - oops, sorry, no go.

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too narrow

Posted May 16, 2006 19:09 UTC (Tue) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

I think it would depend on how you distributed. If you package the three separately, or if you prelinked the shim to the kernel (1+2) with the blob (3) simply on the disk, then you should be OK, because the blob is not "a work based on the program" and is allowed to be aggregated. However, if you prelink the blob to the shim (2+3), then you can't ship them on the same media with the kernel, because 2+3 IS a work based on 1. I don't know how the Kororaa distribution is structured.

Actually, after looking at the language again, it's not clear to me why you can't aggregate an unmodified binary kernel with anything you like (including things that would modify that kernel post-distribution), but that would depend on exactly how a court read the phrase "under the terms of Sections 1 and 2" that appear in section 3. Since section 2 only talks about distribution of modified versions, I don't see why it would bear on distributing an unmodified binary; I'll have to go see if Rosen says anything about how this interpretation works.