On 11/08/2012 06:08 PM, Nicholas A. Bellinger wrote: > Support for certified VAAI is part of our commercial target core. The > target core constitutes a stand-alone kernel subsystem of which we are > the sole copyright owners. In addition, our target contains a number of > backend drivers, of which we are also the sole copyright owners, and a > number of fabric modules, of which some we are the sole copyright > owners, and of which others we are not, as you pointed out. A > substantial fraction of the code of which we own the sole copyright was > certified by BlackDuck Software as early as in 2007. See this: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html from section 2 "These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it." Is your code an independent and separate work from the Linux kernel? Some tests might be: can it be used without the Linux kernel? Can it be used with alternative kernels? Even if the answer to these questions is YES (which it isn't) then that second quoted sentence would still put your code under the terms of the GPL, since RTS OS distributes its changes along with the Linux kernel. I've spent enough time arguing the factual basis of this issue. It seems crystal clear to me, and I have a hard time seeing how anyone could disagree. But let's forget licenses and talk community. Looking back, can anyone say that your push to get LIO accepted into mainline as the kernel target was in good faith? Back before LIO was merged, James chose LIO over SCST saying to the SCST devs: "Look, let me try to make it simple: It's not about the community you bring to the table, it's about the community you have to join when you become part of the linux kernel." RTS behaved long enough to get LIO merged, and then forget community. James is right, community is more important than code, and licenses enforce community expectations. RTS has appeared just community-focused enough to prevent someone else's code from being adopted, so it can extract the benefits and still maintain its proprietary advantage. -- Andy -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-scsi" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
