Cisco Cisco IPICS Release 2.1 Licensing Information

definitely do need to know about the taint.

 

You are not the first (and sadly, you likely won't be the last) person to

equate binary kernel modules with binary firmware. And I tell you that

such a comparison is ABSOLUTE CRAPOLA. There's a damn big difference

between running firmware on another chip behind a PCI bus, and linking

into the kernel directly.

 

And if you don't see that difference, then you are either terminally

stupid, or you have some ulterior reason to claim that they are the same

case even though they clearly are NOT.

 

> Can you honestly tell apart the two cases, if you don't make a it a case

> of "religion war"?

 

It has absolutely nothing to do with religion.

 

Linus

 

Date:Fri, 5 Dec 2003 09:19:52 -0800 (PST)

From:Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

To:Peter Chubb

cc:linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org

Subject: Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?

Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0312050853200.9125@home.osdl.org>

 

On Fri, 5 Dec 2003, Peter Chubb wrote:

>

> As I understand it, SCO is/was claiming that JFS and XFS are derived

> works of the UNIX source base, because they were developed to match

> the internal interfaces of UNIX, and with knowledge of the internals

> of UNIX -- and they hold the copyrights of and are the licensor of UNIX.

 

Yes, and I'm not claiming anything like that.

 

I claim that a "binary linux kernel module" is a derived work of the

kernel, and thus has to come with sources.

 

But if you use those same sources (and _you_ wrote them) they do not

contain any Linux code, they are _clearly_ not derived from Linux, and you

can license and use your own code any way you want.

 

You just can't make a binary module for Linux, and claim that that module

isn't derived from the kernel. Because it generally is - the binary

module not only included header files, but more importantly it clearly is

_not_ a standalone work any more. So even if you made your own prototypes

and tried hard to avoid kernel headers, it would _still_ be connected and

dependent on the kernel.