On Fri, 2006-06-09 at 20:55 +0200, Alberto Botti wrote: > Il giorno mer, 07/06/2006 alle 11.49 -0400, Lee Revell ha scritto: > > On Wed, 2006-06-07 at 04:50 -0500, Jan Depner wrote: > > > Why do you assume this? There are plenty of closed-source > > > applications and drivers running on top of Linux. > > > > > > > Closed source applications are perfectly OK. A closed source ALSA > > driver violates the GPL. > > >From the ALSA soundcard support page > (http://www.alsa-project.org/call.php): > > "There is nothing to stop any company from developing a binary only > driver that works with ALSA. But there are several issues and > requirements we want to make clear to anybody attempting to do this." > "Works with ALSA" is not exactly the same as a binary ALSA driver. "Binary-only drivers cannot be based on any ALSA source code. They must be written from scratch. Binary-only drivers that contain ALSA code are infringing on copyright laws." IOW, a binary only ALSA driver can implement the ALSA API, but it cannot use the ALSA kernel middle layer at all. AFAICT this means that you could implement a ALSA compatibility wrapper around a binary blob as long as that blob was not developed for use on Linux. But developing a binary driver for use on Linux is clearly a derived work of the kernel and thus illegal. Lee
