On Tue, 16 Sep 2008, Benny Amorsen wrote: > I doubt that *BSD would allow GPL'd .c-files into their kernel trees. Ha. Found one. Present (NetBSD) OS does not give me access to my up-to-date source repositories, so I don't know if it's obsolete now, and I can't grep through DragonFly-, Open-, and other derivates along the BSD family tree. There are, however, numerous dual GPL/BSD license files to be found, some with different wordings. /mnt/usr/local/src/netbsd-current-src/src/NetBSD.cvs/src/sys/dev/pci/if_lmc.c is an example of a file has plenty of Linuxisms intact. /mnt/usr/local/src/netbsd-current-src/src/NetBSD.cvs/src/sys/external/bsd/drm/dist/shared-core/via_drv.c has a BSD license atop, and at the end, a Linux kernel module GPL license... /altroot/STABLE-4.4-FreeBSD/usr/local/system/src/sys/kern/kern_random.c is quite old -- while I do have later source on this disk, my present kernel limits me to the 16 partitions I've defined from the 30-odd I can find with Linux (experimental code to use BSD disklabels or GPT has not been as successful as I would like); this isn't relevant, is it? Anyway... I'll quote from this file: * $FreeBSD: src/sys/kern/kern_random.c,v 1.36.2.4 2002/09/17 17:11:57 sam Exp $ * Version 0.95, last modified 18-Oct-95 * Copyright Theodore Ts'o, 1994, 1995. All rights reserved. [...] * ALTERNATIVELY, this product may be distributed under the terms of * the GNU Public License, in which case the provisions of the GPL are * required INSTEAD OF the above restrictions. (This clause is * necessary due to a potential bad interaction between the GPL and * the restrictions contained in a BSD-style copyright.) Now we take a look at an interesting file: * $FreeBSD: src/sys/dev/dgb/dgm.c,v 1.31.2.3 2001/10/07 09:02:25 brian Exp $ [...] * There was a copyright confusion: I thought that having read the * GLPed drivers makes me mentally contaminated but in fact it does * not. Since the Linux driver by Troy De Jongh <troyd@xxxxxxxxxx> or * <troyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> was used only to learn the Digi's interface, * I've returned this driver to a BSD-style license. I tried to contact * all the contributors and those who replied agreed with license * change. If you did any contribution when the driver was GPLed and do * not agree with the BSD-style re-licensing please contact me. * -SB ``Mentally contaminated''. Hmmm. Need to design a suitable icon for that, and print up biohazard-like warning signs to wear on my jacket. Anyway, that's an example of the sort of flame wars that you can find elsewhere. Now, a bit futher along, again from my old source tree, /altroot/STABLE-4.4-FreeBSD/usr/local/system/src/sys/gnu/i386/isa/dgb.c * dgb.c $FreeBSD: src/sys/gnu/i386/isa/dgb.c,v 1.56.2.1 2001/02/26 04:23:09 jlemon Exp $ * * Digiboard driver. * * Stage 1. "Better than nothing". * Stage 2. "Gee, it works!". * * Based on sio driver by Bruce Evans and on Linux driver by Troy * De Jongh <troyd@xxxxxxxxxx> or <troyd@xxxxxxxxxxxx> * which is under GNU General Public License version 2 so this driver * is forced to be under GPL 2 too. But then, this is under FreeBSD's sys/gnu subdirectory, where optional non-BSD-licensed files would be found. Of course, the actual basics of the kernel (memory manglement and what not) will not be exclusively GPL -- only those optional components for convenience. I hope these licenses help any authors who are considering whether a dual-license for their code is worthy. This is all based on `grep', not on an intimate knowledge of how these source files interface with the kernel. > P.S. Interesting place you keep your sources... Not enough mountpoints, too many external drives with too many partitions, never enough consistency to add a fixed mountpoint for anything that I might occasionally mount, so I just mount it on whatever looks available, then it kinda gets hardcoded differently into different scripts on different OSen, and anyway, I usually end up rearranging or migrating stuff sooner rather than later. med venlig hilsen, barry bouwsma _______________________________________________ linux-dvb mailing list linux-dvb@xxxxxxxxxxx http://www.linuxtv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/linux-dvb
