On Sunday, May 25, 2008 3:25 PM, Greg KH wrote: > On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 12:07:41PM -0600, Vadim Klishko wrote: >> On Sunday, May 25, 2008 9:37 AM, Greg KH wrote: >> >> > On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 09:40:32AM +0100, James Chapman wrote: >> >> >> >> Is the optional "library" proprietary (binary only)? If so, think >> >> carefully about GPL implications. Adding a simple GPL driver to expose >> >> proprietary hooks isn't good... >> > >> Yes, that was exactly the idea. >> >> > It's not only, "not good", it's flat out illegal and violates the >> > license of the kernel. Do not do this at all if you are thinking you >> > can keep something from being released under the GPL. >> > >> I thought there was a legal way of doing it as described here: >> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs > > The kernel is not a "system library", nor does it interact with one at > all. > > Also note that the kernel is covered under GPLv2, not v3, which is the > description of most of the answers on that page. > > There is no way to create a "GPL Condom" to protect your code in the > kernel from being released under the GPLv2, sorry, that just is not > possible. For lots of prior art on this, and lots of failed legal > attempts to do this, please see the Samba group, there is a long history > of them prevailing on this topic. > Sorry, I couldn't find anything on www.samba.org. Could you please provide a link? On the other hand, ATI specifically says that their Linux driver is not open-source (http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html#4). Are they doing it illegally? How come no one is after them? > thanks, > > greg k-h
