Cisco Cisco IPICS Release 2.1 Licensing Information

> So being a module is not a sign of not being a derived work. It's just

> one sign that _maybe_ it might have other arguments for why it isn't

> derived.

 

Side note: historically, the Linux kernel module interfaces were really

quite weak, and only exported a few tens of entry-points, and really

mostly effectively only allowed character and block device drivers with

standard interfaces, and loadable filesystems.

 

So historically, the fact that you could load a module using nothing but

these standard interfaces tended to be a much stronger argument for not

being very tightly coupled with the kernel.

 

That has changed, and the kernel module interfaces we have today are MUCH

more extensive than they were back in '95 or so. These days modules are

used for pretty much everything, including stuff that is very much

"internal kernel" stuff and as a result the kind of historic "implied

barrier" part of modules really has weakened, and as a result there is not

avery strong argument for being an independent work from just the fact

that you're a module.

 

Similarly, historically there was a much stronger argument for things like

AFS and some of the binary drivers (long forgotten now) for having been

developed totally independently of Linux: they literally were developed

before Linux even existed, by people who had zero knowledge of Linux. That

tends to strengthen the argument that they clearly aren't derived.

 

In contrast, these days it would be hard to argue that a new driver or

filesystem was developed without any thought of Linux. I think the NVidia

people can probably reasonably honestly say that the code they ported had

_no_ Linux origin. But quite frankly, I'd be less inclined to believe that

for some other projects out there..

 

Linus

 

 

 

 

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