Practical vs. Possible

Posted Oct 14, 2003 20:25 UTC (Tue) by rknop (guest, #66)
In reply to: Practical vs. Possible by ncm
Parent article: LinkSys and binary modules

If the module is distributed independently of a kernel, and contains no code lifted from the kernel, and uses only published interfaces into the kernel, then (again) it doesn't matter what Linus or any other copyright holder says. Then, it's probably not a derived work.

The issue then becomes more continuous... just how much ought to be published interface? As the article notes, it's not too far to imagine making publishable interfaces such that pretty seriously core parts of the kernel could have proprietary plug-ins. Right now, we mostly have that just for device drivers.

-Rob

Practical vs. Possible

Posted Oct 14, 2003 20:38 UTC (Tue) by ncm (guest, #165) [Link] (1 responses)

If it's in a header file, it's probably published. Even if it's not in header file, the source is published. No matter what the FSF says, a judge is likely to decide that if you physically can plug into it without "circumventing" anybody's encryption, then you're allowed to. Of course, the more of that you do, the more fragile your module becomes.

None of these fine points apply to Linksys, of course. They can't just ship the module, they have to ship the kernel, too, or they don't have a router to sell. That puts them squarely under my second alternative, above, shipping what is unambiguously a derived work.

Practical vs. Possible

Posted Oct 14, 2003 20:55 UTC (Tue) by Ross (guest, #4065) [Link]

I don't think copyright's concept of derivative works have anything to do
with encyption. The only part of copyright that does is the DMCA and we
aren't talking about that here, at least I hope not :)