Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 23 Apr 1996 18:10:56 -0400 | From | "Theodore Y. Ts'o" <> | Subject | Re: Must modules be GPL'ed? (fwd) |
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From: Jim Nance <Jim_Nance@avanticorp.com> Date: Tue, 23 Apr 1996 07:27:32 -0400 (EDT)
There have been debates about this before. Not too much agreement. For what its worth, the AFS module and Caldera's netware file system are distributed as kernel modules w/o source and not too many people are up in arms. In fact I think Linus made some changes to the kernel code to accomidate AFS.
Linus has made the statement that as long as you limit yourself to the interfaces provided in kernel/ksyms.c, the module can be considered a free-standing unit and not subject to the GPL --- just as a program which is executed under the Linux kernel does not have to be subject to the GPL.
At least in theory, the ksyms.c interface attempts to be much less fluid that than rest of the kernel interfaces, so there is some prayer of a chance that a module which is distributed versus one particular kernel release will continue to work with future kernel releases.
It is certainly against the sprit of Linux to not have source to everything. However, I think most linux developers, given the choice of having an AFS module w/o source or not having an AFS module at all, would choose to have the AFS module w/o source. I suspect that many people would make the opposite choice, but I am only speaking about the attitudes that I have observed on this mailing list.
That's certainly the choice I would make. RMS and others would make the opposite choice, of course, but I believe it's this kind of flexibility that will allow Linux to be much more useful than the HURD ever will be. As much as I would prefer for AFS and the Netware client software to be free, the sad fact of the matter is that it is extremely unlikely this will be the case. In the meantime, I for one would prefer Linux to have the functionality instead of remaining ideologically pure.
- Ted
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