From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S933300AbXBBIZo (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Feb 2007 03:25:44 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S933307AbXBBIZo (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Feb 2007 03:25:44 -0500 Received: from mail1.webmaster.com ([216.152.64.169]:4918 "EHLO mail1.webmaster.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S933300AbXBBIZo (ORCPT ); Fri, 2 Feb 2007 03:25:44 -0500 From: "David Schwartz" To: Cc: "Linux Kernel Mailing List" Subject: RE: [PATCH] Ban module license tag string termination trick Date: Fri, 2 Feb 2007 00:24:48 -0800 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.6604 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <45C27908.1000202@foo-projects.org> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.3028 Importance: Normal X-Authenticated-Sender: joelkatz@webmaster.com X-Spam-Processed: mail1.webmaster.com, Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:25:07 -0800 (not processed: message from trusted or authenticated source) X-MDRemoteIP: 206.171.168.138 X-Return-Path: davids@webmaster.com X-MDaemon-Deliver-To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Reply-To: davids@webmaster.com X-MDAV-Processed: mail1.webmaster.com, Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:25:07 -0800 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > to me it even screams "bypassing or a digital copyright > enforcement system". > that sounds really close to "D.M.C.A. violation" :) > > thank goodness I'm not a laywer... It is not. GPL export is *not* a copyright enforcement scheme. (See the many times when this was discussed on this list.) The GPL prohibits the use of copyright enforcement schemes in sections 6 and 7. Suppose there were some law that said that if I put "do not modify this line" in a piece of code, you could not modify that line. The GPL would clearly prohibit putting such a thing in a work, as that would remove from recipients their right to modify the code -- a right guaranteed to them under the GPL. Same with GPL export. If it is a copyright enforcement scheme and it prevented people from modifying the code to include the license tag termination trick, they would not have the right to modify the code that way which the GPL says they are supposed to have. So *if* EXPORT_GPL were a copyright enforcement scheme, the Linux kernel containing it could not be distributed. The consensus view, as I understand it, is that the GPL export is a warning/notification scheme to alert people that their use of these symbols in non-GPL code is believed to violate the GPL *if* that code is distributed (which the GPL export logic has no way to determine has happened or will ever happen). It is no different than refusing a command to change the time of day from a non-superuser. In any event, even if you assume it is a copyright enforcement scheme, it is not circumvention to remove or disable such a scheme with the permission of the copyright holder. Section 2 of the GPL grants just such permission. DS