From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263778AbTLEBaq (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Dec 2003 20:30:46 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263784AbTLEBaq (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Dec 2003 20:30:46 -0500 Received: from sj-iport-4.cisco.com ([171.68.10.86]:59737 "EHLO sj-iport-4.cisco.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263778AbTLEBap (ORCPT ); Thu, 4 Dec 2003 20:30:45 -0500 Reply-To: From: "Hua Zhong" To: "'Larry McVoy'" , "'Erik Andersen'" , "'Zwane Mwaikambo'" , "'Paul Adams'" , Subject: RE: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? Date: Thu, 4 Dec 2003 17:30:40 -0800 Organization: Cisco Systems Message-ID: <00c001c3bacf$64cd5240$d43147ab@amer.cisco.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook, Build 10.0.4024 In-Reply-To: <20031205012124.GB15799@work.bitmover.com> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4927.1200 Importance: Normal Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org > But given that, neither Linus (nor any of you) get to say > "well, that's fine for userland but drivers are derived works". Indeed. Linus said nowadays kernel modules developed with Linux specifically in mind are less likely to be considered "not a derived work" as early days kernel modules. However, how about user space programs designed specifically for Linux, and even using Linux specific system calls? It's definitely a grey area here, and it's not so clear that kernel-user boundary is stronger than kernel-kernel boundary per se. :-) Note kernel-user boundary is not just normal system calls. /proc, ioctl (provided by kernel modules) are also part of it (which are system calls too but they can be arbitrarily extended).