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A position statement on closed-source kernel modulesA position statement on closed-source kernel modulesPosted Jun 23, 2008 21:44 UTC (Mon) by chromatic (guest, #26207)In reply to: A position statement on closed-source kernel modules by lrosen Parent article: A position statement on closed-source kernel modules
> Copyright deals exclusively with *expressive* works, and only if a work > is *expressively* derivative of another do we have a copyright > infringement issue. Let's try a thought experiment. Take a kernel driver. Link it against two sets of headers. One is the standard set of Linux kernel headers from the most recent stable kernel release. Another is a complete clean-room reimplementation of the same kernel headers. If the two binary blobs produced differ by even one bit, then are the binary blobs not derivative works of the headers? The source code may not be derivative at all, but if your clients wanted to distribute source code and never a binary blob, this wouldn't be an issue.
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A position statement on closed-source kernel modules Posted Jun 24, 2008 2:22 UTC (Tue) by lrosen (guest, #31972) [Link] You'll enjoy reading SFLC's article on derivative works: http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/originality....
A position statement on closed-source kernel modules Posted Jun 24, 2008 12:26 UTC (Tue) by grantingram (subscriber, #18390) [Link] Well we might all enjoy the SFLC's article on derivative works but it is not the linked article! The linked article is about originality and as far as I can see says not very much about derivative works and it doesn't explicitly mention derivative works where you have two different authors.
A position statement on closed-source kernel modules Posted Jun 24, 2008 8:17 UTC (Tue) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link] No. It's not automatically a "derivative" of Linux just because it has a single bit in its image changed by Linux. Copyright deals with creative works, thus merely being influenced in some mechanical fashion is not enough. The -content- matters, not the bits as such. For this reason, Harry Potter retold in your own words, in Sanskrit, would still be a derivative of the original, even if you took great care that not a single sentence is the same whereas another book very well could NOT be a derivative even if it DID happen to share a few dozen sentences with the harry potter books.
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