Bob Friesenhahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> On Tue, 20 May 2008, Joerg Schilling wrote:
>
> > The GPL does not forbid GPLd code to use non-GPLd code from a GPLd project.
> > If this was not true, then the GPL would be completely unusable. It is bad
> > to
> > see that RMS in his talks always tells you what he _likes_ to do but never
> > what
> > the GPL really does (to make it compatible with reality).
>
> You are correct. As long as the source code for the complete work is
> distributed in terms which comply with GPL, it is ok. Note that Linus
> (and others) have more reqirements for Linux than GPL actually
> requires. Debian Linux would never support this sort of blending.
It may be that you confuse the term "work" in trying to extend it in a wrong
way.
The reason why GPLd code may happily call non-GPLd code is because otherwise
GPLd code would be illegal on AIX, HP-UX or Cygwin (or other closed source
platforms). This is what the FSF likes to avoid. Given the fact that the GPLv2
does not mention the term "linking", it is obvious that there is no difference
between static and dynamic linking. The GPLv2 is completely based on the term
"work", so we have to be careful when interpreting whether/how the "work" may
be expanded in a specific case. In order to allow GPLd software on CSS
platforms (as mentioned above), it is obvious that the term "work" cannot be
expanded in a way that it includes unrelated code. The only possible way to
define the "work" seems to be in including only the code that was _derived_
from the original GPLd code.
On CSS platforms, libc or similar are obviously not derived from GPLd code and
thus cannot be part of "the work" altough libc code may appear in a binary
created from a GPLd work.
Conclusion 1) is that the original CDDLd ZFS code is not part of "the work"
"Linux".
Conclusion 2) is that if the ZFS port is done in a way that does not introduce
code "derived" from the Linux kernel into ZFS, there will be no problem with a
CDDLd ZFS used by Linux.
Jörg
--
EMail:[EMAIL PROTECTED] (home) Jörg Schilling D-13353 Berlin
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (uni)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (work) Blog: http://schily.blogspot.com/
URL: http://cdrecord.berlios.de/old/private/ ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/schily
_______________________________________________
zfs-discuss mailing list
zfs-discuss@opensolaris.org
http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss
