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    SubjectRe: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers
    On Thu, Feb 15, 2007 at 12:00:56PM +0100, Xavier Bestel wrote:
    > On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 12:51 +0200, Mohammed Gamal wrote:
    > > I am still a kernel newbie, and I am still not very much aware about
    > > the GPL vs. Non-GPL drivers debate. I personally think it'd be better
    > > that all drivers should be GPL'd but if that's the case, what would be
    > > the legal position of such vendors as ATI or NVIDIA who supply closed
    > > source drivers? Would it be illegal to use them?
    >
    > Yeah, this is a recurrent debate, and the positions are mixed. Linus
    > said that the nvidia driver isn't developed only for linux but also for
    > windows, so it's not a true derivative of the kernel, so the GPL doesn't
    > really apply. But not everyone (I mean core developpers) fully agrees
    > IIRC.

    to further expand on the above question it isn't really crystal clear
    whether this (from the ATI driver) is legal..
    (psuedo diff vs the kernel agp drivers)



    +#ifdef STANDALONE_AGPGART
    MODULE_AUTHOR("Jeff Hartmann <jhartmann@precisioninsight.com>");
    MODULE_PARM(agp_try_unsupported, "1i");
    #ifdef MODULE_LICENSE
    MODULE_LICENSE("GPL and additional rights");
    +#endif


    and then linking the result to their binary blob.
    I assume ATI's lawyers think its legal, as it's been a year and
    a half since I first brought this questionable act to their
    attention.

    Dave

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