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is _also_ one such case. The lines you added are yours, but when you

distribute it as an elaboration, you are bound by the restriction on

derivative works.

 

Or you had better have some other strong argument why it isn't. Which has

been my point all along.

 

Linus

 

 

Date:Wed, 10 Dec 2003 09:10:18 -0800 (PST)

From:Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>

To:Larry McVoy

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

 

On Wed, 10 Dec 2003, Larry McVoy wrote:

>

> Which is?  How is it that you can spend a page of text saying a judge doesn't

> care about technicalities and then base the rest of your argument on the

> distinction between a "plugin" and a "kernel module"?

 

I'll stop arguing, since you obviously do not get it.

 

I explained the technicalities to _you_, and you are a technical person.

 

But if you want to explain something to a judge, you get a real lawyer,

and you make sure that the lawyer tries to explain the issue in _non_

technical terms. Because, quite frankly, the judge is not going to buy a

technical discussion he or she doesn't understand.

 

Just as an example, how do you explain to a judge how much code the Linux

kernel contains? Do you say "it's 6 million lines of C code and header

files and documentation, for a total of about 175MB of data"?

 

Yeah, maybe you'd _mention_ that, but to actually _illustrate_ the point

you'd say that if you printed it out, it would be a solid stack of papers

100 feet high.  And you'd compare it to the height of the court building

you're in, or something. Maybe you'd print out _one_ file, bind it as a

book, and wave it around as one out of 15,000 files.

 

But when _you_ ask me about how big the kernel is, I'd say "5 million

lines". See the difference? It would be silly for me to tell you how many

feet of paper the kernel would print out to, because we don't have those

kinds of associations.

 

Similarly, if you want to explain the notion of a kernel module, you'd

compare it to maybe an extra chapter in a book. You'd make an analogy to

something that never _ever_ mentions "linking".