Messages in this thread | | | Date | Fri, 08 Feb 2008 13:20:29 +1030 | From | David Newall <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] USB: mark USB drivers as being GPL only |
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Hans-Jürgen Koch wrote: > The license says that derivative work has to be GPL. Naturally, every > sensible and practically usable license has gray areas. We know that > and we live with that. But if there's room for interpretation, it's > perfectly OK and helpful, if the copyright holder states what his > interpretation is. If you use an EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL symbol in non-GPL > code, you know that the owner of the work doesn't agree with you > license-wise.
How can an author form the opinion that another work is derivative, when it hasn't even necessarily been written yet?
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is no statement of the author's beliefs. It's an algorithm of restriction, and it affects original, non-derivative works.
>> It requires software that is *distributed* as part of a GPL >> work to itself be GPL. At time of distribution, a kernel module is >> neither using nor linked to the kernel. >> > > Oh, come on! You cannot turn a derived work into an original work just > by distributing them seperately.
That's not what I said. From the start, I've made clear that I'm talking of original, non-derivative works. You said that mere linking makes that non-derivative work derivative:
> Using a symbol from a library means linking to it, and that creates a > derived work. Why should it be different when using kernel symbols?
This is wrong for the reasons I stated. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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