From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262569AbTLAA6O (ORCPT ); Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:58:14 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262705AbTLAA6N (ORCPT ); Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:58:13 -0500 Received: from h80ad2462.async.vt.edu ([128.173.36.98]:56488 "EHLO turing-police.cc.vt.edu") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262569AbTLAA6M (ORCPT ); Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:58:12 -0500 Message-Id: <200312010057.hB10vm02008624@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.6.3 04/04/2003 with nmh-1.0.4+dev To: john smith Cc: manfred@colorfullife.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Kernel modul licensing issues In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 01 Dec 2003 01:27:58 +0100." <21620.1070238478@www5.gmx.net> From: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu References: <21620.1070238478@www5.gmx.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; boundary="==_Exmh_-1934712984P"; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Sun, 30 Nov 2003 19:57:48 -0500 Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org --==_Exmh_-1934712984P Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable 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.... --==_Exmh_-1934712984P Content-Type: application/pgp-signature -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Exmh version 2.5 07/13/2001 iD8DBQE/ypIMcC3lWbTT17ARAlxGAJ9YlYrbIvsqIPb8FY6+u/iTu9KODgCfRG1a IWT4N/2NFAP5IhNB0UldMPA= =S7eq -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --==_Exmh_-1934712984P--