On Fri, 2007-06-15 at 11:23 -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > On Fri, 15 Jun 2007, David Woodhouse wrote: > > > > Actually, I don't see where it explicitly states that it only covers > > derived work. > > See "Section 0": > > The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a > "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any > derivative work under copyright law: > > so yes, if you grepped for "derived work", you wouldn't have found it. The > exact wording used in the license is "derivative work under copyright > law". > > So the very *definition* of the word "Program" is indeed limited by the > notion of "derived work" - as defined by copyright law, and NOT the GPLv2.
Yep. And ยง2 talks explicitly about independent and separate works when they are distributed _with_ the Program, as part of a larger work based on the Program. > > The case which interests me most is when someone makes an embedded > > device, for example a router -- and they distribute a 'blob' of > > firmware for it, containing both the kernel a binary-only network driver > > module. Again we have to ask ourselves "is this a work based on the > > kernel?". Obviously there isn't a 'right' answer outside a court of law, > > but personally I reckon it's a fairly safe bet that it _is_ going to be > > considered to be a work based on Linux. > > Hey, I kind of disagree. > > What is a DVD? It's just a "blob" of a UDF image, potentially containing > the Linux kernel. > > How is that different from a "blob" of some other kind of image (say, a > cramfs or similar image) on a rom? > > What makes UDF so different from cramfs? What makes a DVD so different > from a ROM chip? Why would copyright law care about one and not the other? The differences are subtle, but they do exist. They're not really about whether it's iso9660 or cramfs; it's about whether what you put on them is a coherent work in its own right or just a bunch of bits which happen to be thrown together onto the same medium. And in the router case, there's little point to its existence without the binary-only module. At least with the DVD it _can_ work without the binary-only module. Although as I said, some distributors definitely claim that the distribution is a 'coherent whole' too. > So I really do _not_ think it's at all obvious. Personally, I think it's > exactly the same case. Others disagree, but I've never really seen a good > *reason* for them disagreeing. It's a grey area, and nobody's 'right' until/unless a court decides. And then only until/unless a higher court contradicts it. The reason I jumped in was to point out that it isn't _just_ about whether the module is a derived work or not. The GPL goes further than that. -- dwmw2 - 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/
