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Re: making a non-GPLed module
- To: Oded Arbel <oded(at-nospam)geek.co.il>
- Subject: Re: making a non-GPLed module
- From: Oleg Goldshmidt <ogoldshmidt(at-nospam)computer.org>
- Date: 29 Nov 2001 11:19:38 +0200
- Cc: frodo(at-nospam)sharat.co.il, Linux-IL Mailing List <linux-il(at-nospam)linux.org.il>
- Delivered-To: linux.org.il-linux-il@linux.org.il
- In-Reply-To: Oded Arbel's message of "Thu, 29 Nov 2001 08:02:02 +0200"
- Organization: Speaking for myself only.
- Original-Sender: ogoldshmidt@computer.org
- References: <Pine.LNX.4.30.0111290140040.19373-100000@frodo.sharat.co.il><08da01c1789b$5dcb40b0$0500a8c0@sunflower>
- Reply-To: linux-il(at-nospam)linux.org.il
- Sender: oleg(at-nospam)data-zoo.com
- Sender: linux-il-bounce(at-nospam)cs.huji.ac.il
- User-Agent: Gnus/5.0807 (Gnus v5.8.7) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley)
Oded Arbel <oded@geek.co.il> writes:
> I do not think that the argument you describe will stand in a court
> of law. on two cases that I know, that were on the way to the court
> house, the parties eventually settled out side the court by the
> violating party agreeing to distribute the non GLPed code
> seperatly. in both cases the copyright owner of the code backed off
> after is was explictly stated by the violator that the product in
> question is no longer in violation because it does do something
> (even if it's a token effort) interesting and useful w/o the GPLed
> code in question.
1) Oded, can you give pointers to the two cases you mention?
2) Yet another follow-up question (to everybody). Assume that a
program does something non-trivial, interesting, and important, and
can actually be used for a lot of different purposes. Assume that
the only reason the creator wants to make a kernel module out of it
is because one particular interesting application is related to the
functionality that belongs to the OS domain rather than application
domain, and the creator wants to make such a module available as a
product. Other products, unrelated to Linux, are being developed as
well. Assume it is provable that the code has a right to exist
without the Linux kernel.
If the author creates a thin "kernel hook" layer that only uses the
kernel API and his s/w API, slaps GPL on it, and then creates a
2 modules - one closed with his functionality, and another serving
as enabler, GPLed, will that be acceptable?
Thus, there will be a closed module whose functionality is not
dependent on the kernel, and a GPLed module whose sole purpose is
to enable usage of that functionality inside the kernel. How does
this sound?
Thanks again to everybody who participates. The thread may seem to be
"yet another boring commies-vs-capitalists discussion," but to me at
least it is very interesting (on a personal level no less than on a
business one), and - I believe - very much on topic.
--
Oleg Goldshmidt | ogoldshmidt@NOSPAM.computer.org
"If it ain't broken, it has not got enough features yet."
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