Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sun, 27 Jun 1999 02:57:43 -0400 (EDT) | From | "Mike A. Harris" <> | Subject | Re: iToaster in violation of GPL? |
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On Sat, 26 Jun 1999, Bernd Eckenfels wrote:
>> This is for the beginning, of course. It's REALLY important check of GPL and >> we must be ready to go as far as in court :-/ But first thing to do is to >> ask them gently about Linux, GPL, iToaster and OS sources... And this is duty >> of Linus I afraid (even he hate such stuff as we all know). Even if Microworks >> violated copyright of few tens different persons at least with Linux usage... > >Well.. of course there is a lot of non-GPL Code in the kernel...
No. The kernel is a "whole" work. The kernel is GPL, and as such, any smaller part of it is also GPL. I think what you _really_ meant to say is that the kernel has code in it of which *THE ORIGINAL* code was not GPL.
Any source code, regardless of it's original license, if brought into any GPL'd source code project, _becomes_ automatically itself GPL. This assumes that the original license and the GPL are compatible however, such as the BSD license. As such, the code borrowed from a BSD licenced source once incorporated into a GPL licenced source, is now GPL itself, and cannot be removed from GPL unless dually licenced and all authors of the GPL'd work as a whole all agree on the dual licensing.
-- Mike A. Harris Linux advocate GNU advocate Computer Consultant Open Source advocate
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot...
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