Cisco Cisco IPICS Dispatch Console Licensing Information

 

 

 

 

Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 10:08:19 -0700 (PDT)

From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>

To: Christoph Hellwig

Cc: <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>

Subject: Re: [PATCH] make LSM register functions GPLonly exports

In-Reply-To: <20021017175403.A32516@infradead.org>

Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0210170958340.6739-100000@home.transmeta.com>

 

Note that if this fight ends up being a major issue, I'm just going to

remove LSM and let the security vendors do their own thing. So far

 

- I have not seen a lot of actual usage of the hooks

- seen a number of people who still worry that the hooks degrade

  performance in critical areas

- the worry that people use it for non-GPL'd modules is apparently real,

  considering Crispin's reply.

 

I will re-iterate my stance on the GPL and kernel modules:

 

 There is NOTHING in the kernel license that allows modules to be

 non-GPL'd.

 

 The _only_ thing that allows for non-GPL modules is copyright law, and

 in particular the "derived work" issue. A vendor who distributes non-GPL

 modules is _not_ protected by the module interface per se, and should

 feel very confident that they can show in a court of law that the code

 is not derived.

 

 The module interface has NEVER been documented or meant to be a GPL

 barrier. The COPYING clearly states that the system call layer is such a

 barrier, so if you do your work in user land you're not in any way

 beholden to the GPL. The module interfaces are not system calls: there

 are system calls used to _install_ them, but the actual interfaces are

 not.

 

 The original binary-only modules were for things that were pre-existing

 works of code, ie drivers and filesystems ported from other operating

 systems, which thus could clearly be argued to not be derived works, and

 the original limited export table also acted somewhat as a barrier to

 show a level of distance.

 

In short, Crispin: I'm going to apply the patch, and if you as a copyright

holder of that file disagree, I will simply remove all of he LSM code from

the kernel. I think it's very clear that a LSM module is a derived work,