On Mon, 01 Dec 2003 01:27:58 +0100, john smith said:

> Well, the algorithm has been developped totally independent from
> linux. It also works under other OS's without any adjustments apart
> from alloc and locking stuff.
> 
> The fact that it receives kernel data as input IMO does not make it
> tightly coupled to the linux kernel since the algorithm does not even
> know or care what it receives as input (at least as far as kernel data
> is concerned). It basically considers kernel data: char[]

You're probably "in the clear" if that's what's really going on, and
can probably go a route similar to NVidia (GPL interface to a binary
module).  The part I'm not having warm fuzzies about is that the only
application that comes to mind that could take a char[] and be totally
kernel-independent and that would make sense in the kernel rather than
out in userspace is a crypto transform - and that's because closed
source crypto is usually not taken seriously.

Consider what Matt Blaze did to Clipper, which was even more closed
source than what you're doing....  Of course, if you're not doing
crypto, then you can apply the usual cost/benefit analysis of doing
it closed source versus the payoff for an attacker to crack it....