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LinkSys and the GPL - againLinkSys and the GPL - againPosted Oct 2, 2003 8:12 UTC (Thu) by cate (subscriber, #1359)In reply to: LinkSys and the GPL - again by dwmw2 Parent article: LinkSys and the GPL - again "His interpretation of the GPL is no more or less relevant than anyone else's." No. Everybody should read the COPYING in the kernel top directory. It is not the standard GPL COPYING, but it have two additional remarks, one about the version (only v2) and the other about module linking. This COPYING has surely more legal weight that the standard GNU COPYING. If you want to protect your code with normal GPL, you should explicit write it (i.e. in the header of your file.).
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LinkSys and the GPL - again Posted Oct 2, 2003 8:38 UTC (Thu) by andersee (guest, #7073) [Link] "Everybody should read the COPYING in the kernel top directory."Everyone including you it seems... So do take a moment and read it. The COPYING file does NOT discuss or make exceptions for kernel modules at all. It makes an exception for user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls. And limits things to the GPLv2. Nothing more. Nothing less. I do not understand where people get the misguided idea that binary only kernel modules are permitted by this license. They arn't. The only conceivable justification is because Linus once said so. Well, Linus stopped being the sole copyright holder over 10 years ago, so the best he can do is make decisions about the code he wrote. Until the kernel COPYING file changes and every contributor to the kernel agrees to the new provisions, there is NO justification whatsoever for binary only kernel modules. As a contributor to the Linux kernel, I know I have no plans to re-license my contributions. And some people, such as Leonard Zubkoff, would have difficulty making posthumous licensing decisions. ergo, binary only kernel modules are not allowed, and the COPYING file is not going to be changing to permit them any time soon.
LinkSys and the GPL - again Posted Oct 2, 2003 9:36 UTC (Thu) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] Copyright isn't held by dead people; it passes on with the estate. This merely makes it harder to find all the copyright holders than it already is; it doesn't make it impossible. What makes it impossible to change the licence is not the fact that it is utterly impracticable to trace all copyright holders, but rather the fact that some of them are actually standing up and saying "NO" to the proposed change. And the fact that it's considered necessary to make an explicit exception to the licence even for userspace programs using the syscall interface makes it entirely clear that it is considered similarly necessary to make an exception for modules using exported symbols. An exception which has not, and can never be, granted.
LinkSys and the GPL - again Posted Oct 10, 2003 11:40 UTC (Fri) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link] "Well, Linus stopped being the sole copyright holder over 10 years ago, so the best he can do is make decisions about the code he wrote."Actually, this "change" to the GPL for linux was added about 10 years ago (if not more), and everybody who has contributed since can be presumed to have agreed to it. If that clause was already there when you contributed to the kernel, then the law is pretty clear. You SHOULD have known what you were doing when you modified someone else's copyrighted work, and if you didn't then that's your problem. This is EXACTLY one of the arguments being used to shoot SCO down ... Cheers,
LinkSys and the GPL - again Posted Oct 2, 2003 8:57 UTC (Thu) by dwmw2 (subscriber, #2063) [Link] "No. Everybody should read the COPYING in the kernel top directory. It is not the standard GPL COPYING, but it have two additional remarks, one about the version (only v2) and the other about module linking."Your copy evidently differs from mine, which says this:
The former exception is for userspace making use of the kernel via system calls, since without such an explicit exception even userspace would be considered a derived work. No such exception is made for modules, which are even more obviously derived than userspace is. It's been there since version 0.99.11, in July 1993. The COPYING file was first added, without any such comment, in 0.99.7 in March of that year. The latter comment was added recently and is not a modification to the licence of the code; rather an editorial comment that, although you can go and fork the kernel and release it under GPLv3, Linus himself won't be accepting GPLv3 code. He does have the right to say that, but he does not have the right to remove section 9 of the GPL and prevent anyone else from releasing their code under GPLv3.
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