Binary modules and derived works

Posted Dec 13, 2003 20:12 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (guest, #1954)
Parent article: Binary modules and derived works

There's an underlying implication in this article that a program might be a derived work of the Linux kernel if it uses the Linux kernel in some way. There's absolutely nothing in the definition of derived work even to suggest that.

The binary module/derived work question is whether a package that contains both the Linux kernel and a binary loadable kernel module is a derived work of the Linux kernel. If it is, then the package cannot be distributed except according the terms of the Linux kernel license, which means in particular that you have to make the source code for that binary module available.

There's also a separate binary module/derived work question that wasn't mentioned here: Some people believe that in creating the binary module, you may be copying the Linux kernel because 1) you may be #including .h files from the Linux kernel, and 2) you may be copying example code from the Linux kernel, since it's the only way you could figure out how to use the LKM interface.