Cisco Cisco IPICS Release 2.1 Licensing Information

I personally consider anything a "derived work" that needs special hooks

in the kernel to function with Linux (ie it is _not_ acceptable to make a

small piece of GPL-code as a hook for the larger piece), as that obviously

implies that the bigger module needs "help" from the main kernel.

 

Similarly, I consider anything that has intimate knowledge about kernel

internals to be a derived work.

 

What is left in the gray area tends to be clearly separate modules: code

that had a life outside Linux from the beginning, and that do something

self-containted that doesn't really have any impact on the rest of the

kernel. A device driver that was originally written for something else,

and that doesn't need any but the standard UNIX read/write kind of

interfaces, for example.

 

> Issue #2

> ========

> I've found statements attributed to you that you think only 10% of

> the code in the current kernel was written by you.  By not being the

> sole copyright holder of the Linux kernel, a stated exception to

> the GPL seems invalid unless all kernel copyright holders agreed on

> this exception.  How does the exception cover GPL'd kernel code not

> written by you?  Has everyone contributing to the kernel forfeited

> their copyright to you or agreed with the exception?

 

Well, see above about the lack of exception, and about the fundamental

gray area in _any_ copyright issue. The "derived work" issue is obviously

a gray area, and I know lawyers don't like them. Crazy people (even

judges) have, as we know, claimed that even obvious spoofs of a work that

contain nothing of the original work itself, can be ruled to be "derived".

 

I don't hold views that extreme, but at the same time I do consider a

module written for Linux and using kernel infrastructures to get its work

done, even if not actually copying any existing Linux code, to be a

derived work by default. You'd have to have a strong case to _not_

consider your code a derived work..

 

> Issue #3

> ========

> This issue is related to issue #1.  Exactly what is covered by the

> exception?  For example, all code shipped with the Linux kernel

> archive and typically installed under /usr/src/linux, all code under

> /usr/src/linux except /usr/src/linux/drivers, or just the code in

> the /usr/src/linux/kernel directory?

 

See above, and I think you'll see my point.

 

The "user program" exception is not an exception at all, for example, it's