From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S264110AbTLENtk (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Dec 2003 08:49:40 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S264119AbTLENtk (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Dec 2003 08:49:40 -0500 Received: from gaia.cela.pl ([213.134.162.11]:51974 "EHLO gaia.cela.pl") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S264110AbTLENtj (ORCPT ); Fri, 5 Dec 2003 08:49:39 -0500 Date: Fri, 5 Dec 2003 14:49:17 +0100 (CET) From: Maciej Zenczykowski To: David Schwartz cc: Jason Kingsland , Subject: RE: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? In-Reply-To: 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 > > My personal view is that Linux should mandate GPL for all modules > > in 2.6 and > > beyond. > > I'm baffled how you think this is a choice that can be made. The license is > the GPL itself and even the Linux kernel developers have no power to change > it. I'm not so sure about that. If Linus and a few core developers decide to explicitly state that you can't use the Linux kernel with binary only modules than you can't. They have the right under copyright to restrict the usage of their contributions - if this means that they say "you can't use our contributions to the kernel with any binary only ring 0 code" - then you can't. And it is totally irrelevant whether your work is derived or not. They can't force you to release your work as GPL - but they can forbid you to utilise the linux kernel with non-GPL'ed work - which in the end is quite close. Or am I totally wrong here? Cheers, MaZe.