Messages in this thread | | | Date | Sat, 13 Sep 2003 11:19:36 -0700 (PDT) | From | Andre Hedrick <> | Subject | Re: People, not GPL [was: Re: Driver Model] |
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On Fri, 12 Sep 2003, Timothy Miller wrote:
> > > David Schwartz wrote: > > > However, some people seem to be arguing that the GPL_ONLY symbols are in > > fact a license enforcement technique. If that's true, then when they > > distribute their code, they are putting additional restrictions not in the > > GPL on it. That is a GPL violation. > > Agreed. GPL_ONLY is not a license restriction. It is a technical issue.
Technical if and only if it did not remove the functionality of the symbol when called.
Since it remove the ability to call and it work, creates a restriction of usaged. Usage being, one calls the function and it works.
I have not decided yet to expose one of the grossest example of API thieft yet, but will do so in time.
> Binary-only modules are inherently untrustworthy (no open code review) > and undebuggable. It is therefore of technical merit to restrict both > what they can access in the kernel (GPL_ONLY) and limit how much kernel > developers should have to tolerate when they're involved.
Who cares, it reports a tainted and the community says, thank you have a nice day.
> But beyond this, there are some social issues. If someone finds a way > to work around this mechanism, they are breaking things to everyone > else's detriment. For a commercial entity to violate the GPL_ONLY > barrier is an insult to kernel developers AND to their customers who > will have trouble getting problems solved.
So when is the last time a business sent it problems to LKML to be solved? If I were a customer of such a company, I would be gone.
> So, if a company works around GPL_ONLY, are they violating the GPL > license? Probably not. Does that make it OKAY? Probably not.
GPL_ONLY violate usage, thus it violate GPL. Not a hard concept. Also what if a company produces a "private gpl" product? Open Source to customers but not to the world?
Nan, nobody would do that silly idea.
> This is like finding a way to give a user space program access to kernel > resources. There are barriers put in place for a REASON because people > make mistakes when they write software. If no one did, we wouldn't have > any need for memory protection, would we.
Stop, the laughing hurts "memory protection" "vm" ...
Cheers,
Andre
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