GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper [LWN.net]

GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

Posted Oct 25, 2006 19:21 UTC (Wed) by drag (subscriber, #31333)
In reply to: GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper by vondo
Parent article: GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

Get back when you get people to agree that:
propriatory code + gpl'd code you own copyright for + gpl'd code that you don't own copyright for = perfectly ok.

I don't think that your realy going to work around the issue.

The ndiswrapper is different as it's more of a generic loader and the windows drivers are clearly 100% not derived code. There are absolutely no restrictions on what end users can do via the GPL license. Personally I could steal W2k source code and shovel it into the kernel code and that is 100% ok as far as the GPL goes. Problems crop up however when you want to ship it to other people.

As for shipping working ndiswrapper drivers.. that's even worse then the nvidia stuff.

Not only are you violating the kernel developer's copyright license, but your also probably violating the licenses provided by the windows drivers writers who probably signed licenses with Microsoft stating that their code is only allowed to run on MS operating systems.. which seems the standard stuff for Microsoft's software licensing.

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GPL-only symbols and ndiswrapper

Posted Oct 26, 2006 23:43 UTC (Thu) by filipjoelsson (subscriber, #2622) [Link]

A lot of "probably" in there.

The nvidia binary module is developed for Windows. Ndiswrapper is a shim to load proprietary drivers developed for Windows, exactly the same as the nvidia shim is. The only difference is that ndiswrapper is a generalized framework whereas the nvidia shim is specialized for just one driver.

So the following question is perfectly valid: Why should ndiswrapper use GPL-symbols when the nvidia shim can't? Both are shipped as source, and ndiswrapper relies on the user providing the proprietary driver.