Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

Posted Oct 28, 2022 4:56 UTC (Fri) by scientes (guest, #83068)
Parent article: Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

I would rather it read "The Linux kernel is collectively licensed under the GPLv2 with no 'copyright-owner' organization exception that can re-license it" or something to that effect. Ownership is entirely a matter of control, and if I have a git copy of Linux I own Linux, period, even if it was not licensed under GPLv2. All the self-righteous "property" talk only distracts from the political and social issues involved, and comes from corrupt and good-for-nothing lawyers that do nothing but sew discontent.

Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

Posted Oct 28, 2022 4:59 UTC (Fri) by scientes (guest, #83068) [Link]

Monopolies are not property, but nobel and moral rights. This is why distributing binary blobs is immoral, but distributing UNIX source code to another licensee of UNIX (and this continues today with ARM licensees) is nobel.

Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

Posted Oct 28, 2022 7:31 UTC (Fri) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link] (2 responses)

Reading the article, it seems that without ownership, there is nobody that can complain when the GPL gets violated (which happens all the time).

In a world without copyright you'd be absolutely right.

Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

Posted Oct 28, 2022 8:41 UTC (Fri) by leromarinvit (subscriber, #56850) [Link] (1 responses)

> it seems that without ownership, there is nobody that can complain when the GPL gets violated

Regarding this, I'm hoping something comes from SFC's enforcement suit against Vizio (https://lwn.net/Articles/895405/). They're suing as a buyer of an affected device, not as a copyright owner. If they win this, owners of violating devices would have credible power against manufacturers even in the face of copyright owners who don't care - which, in the case of Linux, seems to be at least a significant minority (or maybe even the majority).

Currently, all you can do as a user is say "pretty please" if the copyright owner doesn't care, and lots of companies get away with ignoring that. This would be a massive improvement in my book.

Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

Posted Oct 30, 2022 19:15 UTC (Sun) by LtWorf (subscriber, #124958) [Link]

Yeah that would be a game changer. But for now it's not certain, so better rely on what we have and is known to work.

Copyright notices (or the lack thereof) in kernel code

Posted Oct 28, 2022 7:43 UTC (Fri) by rsidd (subscriber, #2582) [Link]

Copyright is about copying/distribution not ownership. You can do what you like with the linux tree on your machine. If you want to build it with a GPL-incompatible driver (that you legally obtained) you can do it on your machine. The problem arises if you want to distribute the result (even if to just one other person).