On Feb 17, 2007, "David Schwartz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>> On Saturday 17 February 2007 03:42, David Schwartz wrote: >> >> > Again, see Lexmark v. Static Controls. If "make a toner cartridge >> > that works with a particular Lexmark printer" is a functional >> > idea, why is "make a graphics driver that works with a particular >> > Linux kernel" not? What is the difference you think matters? >> That you cannot build such modules without integrating parts of >> actual Linux kernel code (via #includes etc), whereas you can build >> compatible toner cartridges without using any original component. > Static Controls actually put a copy of Lexmark's 'Toner Loading Program' on > each compatible cartridge they made. The printer actually copies the TLP off > the cartridge. In other words, to make a compatible catridge, you do have to > use an original component. (Or at least, it's much more difficult not to.) Besides, you *can* build a module for Linux without using any kernel code. It just takes a lot of work to implement all you'd otherwise need from the kernel in a clean-room fashion. -- Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/ FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/ Red Hat Compiler Engineer [EMAIL PROTECTED], gcc.gnu.org} Free Software Evangelist [EMAIL PROTECTED], gnu.org} - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
