On Mon, 2005-03-07 at 17:46 -0600, > No court would ever rule that a driver is a "derived work" of the kernel > it links to. Otherwise, you could then argue every Windows driver would > be a derivation of Windows, and therefore Microsoft would own the > copyright to every Windows driver. As you can imagine, we'd have a > thousand Windows IHVs screaming bloody murder if that were to happen. > Even Microsoft would be opposed to that. I think you missunderstood what derived works are. "derived work" does not mean "I own your copyright". It means "you need my permission". Who different ballgame. And Microsoft gives you that permission in the license for their device driver development kit you purchase. Linux gives you that permission under the condition your derived work is GPL. > > So since a driver isn't a derivation of the kernel, then it doesn't have > to have the same license. There'd be no legal requirement to make any > module GPL. Also, copyright isn't a factor, so the DMCA doesn't apply. you are wrong here. -- Kernelnewbies: Help each other learn about the Linux kernel. Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/kernelnewbies/ FAQ: http://kernelnewbies.org/faq/
