From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S263796AbTLJSDF (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:03:05 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263810AbTLJSDE (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:03:04 -0500 Received: from fw.osdl.org ([65.172.181.6]:64141 "EHLO mail.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263796AbTLJSDC (ORCPT ); Wed, 10 Dec 2003 13:03:02 -0500 Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 10:02:47 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Larry McVoy cc: Andre Hedrick , 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: <20031210175614.GH6896@work.bitmover.com> Message-ID: References: <20031210153254.GC6896@work.bitmover.com> <20031210163425.GF6896@work.bitmover.com> <20031210175614.GH6896@work.bitmover.com> 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 On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Larry McVoy wrote: > > I see. And your argument, had it prevailed 5 years ago, would have > invalidated the following, would it not? The following from one of the > Microsoft lawsuits. No it wouldn't. Microsoft very much _has_ a binary API to their drivers, in a way that Linux doesn't. MS has to have that binary API exactly because they live in a binary-only world. They've basically put that requirement on themselves by having binary-only distributions. So your argument doesn't fly. To Microsoft, a "driver" is just another external entity, with documented API's, and they indeed ship their _own_ drivers that way too. And all third-party drivers do the same thing. So there is no analogy to the Linux case. In Linux, no fixed binary API exists, and the way normal drivers are distributed are as GPL'd source code. Linus