Re: Help porting wireless InProComm IPN 2220 driver to 2.6

From: Daniel J Blueman
Date: Thu Sep 15 2005 - 06:24:04 EST


On 9/15/05, Andreas Steinmetz <ast@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> Daniel J Blueman wrote:
> > The file D-Link has made available contains either this or a
> > closed-source driver.
>
> This is getting interesting. The tar archive contains a kernel source
> tree (looks like 2.4.26). This kernel source tree contains the directory:
>
> linux-2.4.x/drivers/net/wireless/inpro2220
>
> Within this directory there's the file IPN2220 which is a mips object
> file, so this is a binary only driver.
>
> Now, even if this is built as a module the module "source" is imported
> in the kernel source tree, i.e. it is not separate from the kernel
> source. IMHO I do see this then as a GPL violation that goes beyond the
> Linus tolerated level.

This depends if the module uses any symbols exported from the kernel
with EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(), and clearly the module license - 'strings'
should be enough do check this is you don't have a MIPS platform to
hand.

See http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0110.2/0369.html .
___
Daniel J Blueman
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