From: "Jonathan A. George" <jageorge@austin.rr.com>
To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Please open sysfs symbols to proprietary modules
Date: Wed, 02 Feb 2005 22:08:20 -0600 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <4201A3B4.2040605@austin.rr.com> (raw)
As an observation:
The Linux kernel appears to contain the GPL copyright notice. This
appears to explicitly releases the right to alter anything in a copy
written work which shares that copyright notice. Therefore, all
exported symbols would appear to carry equal weight; thus making the
GPL_ prefix a notation of dubious value. Furthermore, it seems as if
that the copyright might allow changing the GPL_ prefix notation to
anything including BSD_HOOK_FOR_PORTING_DRIVERS_TO_THE_LINUX_KERNEL_
instead.
It would seem just as surprising if the U.S. courts were to stop
considering history of enforcement in copyright law as it would if they
were to start considering in cases of patent law.
(I would love to see the opinion of an IP lawyer who has conclusively
tested these aspects of copyright law in court.)
--------------------
A paranoid approach it to develop your driver targeted at FreeBSD, and
then develop a glue layer abstraction for porting to other OS's. Then
you simply might GPL your glue layer code as a module using any symbols
you want for your GPL copy written code per the observations earlier in
this email.
In this way you will have created a work with no intrinsic dependencies
on the Linux kernel which avoids presenting your work as an obvious
target for those who prefer to spend their time looking for targets. :-)
--------------------
P.S. Sorry about breaking mailer threading. :-(
next reply other threads:[~2005-02-03 4:09 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 37+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2005-02-03 4:08 Jonathan A. George [this message]
2005-02-03 5:07 ` Please open sysfs symbols to proprietary modules Kyle Moffett
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2005-02-17 23:13 parker
2005-02-18 3:32 ` Chris Friesen
2005-02-18 13:13 ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-02-03 12:30 Jonathan A. George
2005-02-04 15:16 ` Adrian Bunk
2005-02-02 22:56 Pavel Roskin
2005-02-02 23:07 ` Greg KH
2005-02-02 23:23 ` Patrick Mochel
2005-02-02 23:29 ` Greg KH
2005-02-03 0:07 ` Pavel Roskin
2005-02-03 0:30 ` Greg KH
2005-02-03 4:54 ` Zan Lynx
2005-02-03 5:07 ` Greg KH
2005-02-03 8:59 ` Helge Hafting
2005-02-03 15:12 ` Alan Cox
2005-02-03 17:26 ` Theodore Ts'o
2005-02-03 13:47 ` linux-os
2005-02-04 16:05 ` David Woodhouse
2005-02-03 0:09 ` Joseph Pingenot
2005-02-03 1:13 ` Pavel Roskin
2005-02-03 2:50 ` Kyle Moffett
2005-02-03 3:17 ` Jon Masters
2005-02-06 7:24 ` Lee Revell
2005-02-07 16:05 ` Chris Friesen
2005-02-07 16:55 ` linux-os
2005-02-07 18:58 ` jerome lacoste
2005-02-07 19:35 ` linux-os
2005-02-07 16:55 ` Randy.Dunlap
2005-02-08 1:40 ` Horst von Brand
2005-02-03 4:57 ` Greg KH
2005-02-03 8:41 ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-02-03 21:00 ` Ben Greear
2005-02-04 9:20 ` Andrew Morton
2005-02-04 9:40 ` Arjan van de Ven
2005-02-15 1:41 ` Alan Cox
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