From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264383AbTLKWuG (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:50:06 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264385AbTLKWuF (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:50:05 -0500 Received: from astound-64-85-224-253.ca.astound.net ([64.85.224.253]:7948 "EHLO master.linux-ide.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264383AbTLKWt5 (ORCPT ); Thu, 11 Dec 2003 17:49:57 -0500 Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2003 14:42:25 -0800 (PST) From: Andre Hedrick To: Rob Landley cc: hzhong@cisco.com, "'Larry McVoy'" , "'Linus Torvalds'" , "'Arjan van de Ven'" , Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, "'Kendall Bennett'" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? In-Reply-To: <200312111559.57215.rob@landley.net> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Rob, > The fact you personally were off in a corner talking about little green men > from mars is remarkably irrelevant to what I wrote to Hua Zhong (who I'm > fairly certain is not you. His english is better.) Gee, I love the insults. I seriously doubt you have ever paid a lawyer to even have the knowledge to allow you to pump out the bovine piles you are spraying in the air. Correct, I am not a lawyer, and you admit you are not one. I have paid lawyers for advice and some damn good ones. Can you say the same? Cheers, Andre Hedrick LAD Storage Consulting Group On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Rob Landley wrote: > On Thursday 11 December 2003 15:20, Andre Hedrick wrote: > > Rob, > > > > Help me out? Who is cloning what ? > > > > I am talking about original works, to talking about talking somebody's > > stuff out of the kernel, hacking it up and distributing the work as an > > original (that is clearly a derived work). > > > > So your arguement is bogus, try again. > > If you'd read the message, you might have noticed that I was talking about why > web browser plugins may be considered to be different from kernel modules. > > The fact you personally were off in a corner talking about little green men > from mars is remarkably irrelevant to what I wrote to Hua Zhong (who I'm > fairly certain is not you. His english is better.) > > I have no intention of "trying again" because I wasn't talking to you in the > first place. (I don't find what you have to say on IP issues particularly > interesting, and don't read the ones that aren't cc'd to me...) Neither of > us are lawyers. The difference is that I know it. > > Rob > > > Cheers, > > > > Andre Hedrick > > LAD Storage Consulting Group > > > > On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Rob Landley wrote: > > > On Thursday 11 December 2003 02:11, Hua Zhong wrote: > > > > > For one thing, the plugin was made by someone without access > > > > > to Netscape or IE's source code, using a documented interface > > > > > that contained sufficient information to do the job without access > > > > > to that source code. > > > > > > > > > > Yes, it matters. > > > > > > > > _What_ matters? > > > > > > > > Open source? (if you write a plugin for an opensource > > > > kernel/application, you are not plugin anymore and you are derived > > > > work.) I am sure you don't mean it. > > > > > > > > Documented interface? Hey, there are sources which are the best > > > > documentation. :-) > > > > > > If you write software by referring to documentation, the barrier for it > > > being a derivative work is higher than if you write it by looking at > > > another implementation. > > > > > > > Seriously, even if I accept that there is never an intent to support a > > > > stable ABI for kernel modules, some vendor can easily claim that "we > > > > support a stable ABI, so write kernel modules for the kernel we > > > > distribute". > > > > > > > > Anything can prevent that? I cannot see GPL disallow it. > > > > > > > > So OK, Linus and other kernel developers never intended to provide a > > > > stable ABI, but someone else could. The original author's intent is > > > > never relevant anymore. This is the goodness of opensource, isn't it? > > > > > > Once upon a time, Compaq did a clean-room clone of IBM's BIOS. Group 1 > > > studied the original bios and wrote up a spec, and group 2 wrote a new > > > bios from that spec, and group 1 never spoke to group 2, and all of this > > > was extensively documented so that when IBM sued them they proved in > > > court that their BIOS wasn't derived from IBM's. (Of course compaq used > > > vigin programmers fresh out of college who'd never seen a PC before, > > > which was a lot easier to do in 1983...) > > > > > > I didn't make this up. This was a really big deal 20 years ago. It > > > happened, and it mattered, and people cared that they created a fresh > > > implementation without seeing the original code, entirely from a written > > > specification that was not a derivative work of the first implementation, > > > so no matter how similar the second implementation was (hand-coded > > > assembly performing the same functions on the same processor in the same > > > amount of space), it could not be considered a derivative work. > > > > > > This was a strong enough defense to beat IBM's lawyers, who were trying > > > to claim that Compaq's new BIOS WAS a derivative work... > > > > > > Rob > > - > To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in > the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org > More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html > Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ >