Re: People, not GPL [was: Re: Driver Model]
From: Timothy Miller
Date: Fri Sep 12 2003 - 15:59:37 EST
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.
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.
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, if a company works around GPL_ONLY, are they violating the GPL
license? Probably not. Does that make it OKAY? Probably not.
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.
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/