Oh, as an insmod, I think the question is quite cloudy indeed, since you
get into questions about what forms a derivative product.
I was looking at the original statement of the two licenses running
together in the same program far too simply .... of course when
considered with dynamic link (which insmod may be considered to be a
form of), the boundaries of what is the program, and what is a
derivative work are very murky.
Unfortunately, AFAIK, the boundaries have never been tested. I think
asking a non-technical court to judge the differences between static,
dynamic, and insmod style linking is probably going to be difficult.
- Garrett
On Tue, 2010-08-17 at 17:07 -0400, Miles Nordin wrote:
> >>>>> "gd" == Garrett D'Amore <garr...@nexenta.com> writes:
>
> >> Joerg is correct that CDDL code can legally live right
> >> alongside the GPLv2 kernel code and run in the same program.
>
> gd> My understanding is that no, this is not possible.
>
> GPLv2 and CDDL are incompatible:
>
>
> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/education/licenses/index_html/#GPLIncompatibleLicenses
>
> however Linus's ``interpretation'' of the GPL considers that 'insmod'
> is ``mere aggregation'' and not ``linking'', but subject to rules of
> ``bad taste''. Although this may sound ridiculous, there are blob
> drivers for wireless chips, video cards, and storage controllers
> relying on this ``interpretation'' for over a decade. I think a ZFS
> porting project could do the same and end up emitting the same warning
> about a ``tained'' kernel that proprietary modules do:
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/147070/
>
> the quickest link I found of Linus actually speaking about his
> ``interpretation'', his thoughts are IMHO completely muddled (which
> might be intentional):
>
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/3/228
>
> thus ultimately I think the question of whether it's legal or not
> isn't very interesting compared to ``is it moral?'' (what some of us
> might care about), and ``is it likely to survive long enough and not
> blow back in your face fiercely enough that it's a good enough
> business case to get funded somehow?'' (the question all the hardware
> manufacturers shipping blob drivers presumably asked themselves)
>
> My own view on blob modules is:
>
> * that it's immoral, and that Linus is both taking the wrong position
> and doing it without authority. Even if his position is
> ``everyone, please let's not fight,'' in practice that is a strong
> position favouring GPL violation, and his squirrelyness may look
> like taking a soft view but in practice it throws so much sand into
> the debate it ends up being actually a much stronger position than
> saying outright, ``I think insmod is mere aggregation.'' My
> copyright shouldn't have to bow to your celebrity.
>
> * and secondly that it does make business sense and is unlikely to
> cause any problems, because no one is able to challenge his
> authority.
>
> Whatever is the view on binary blob modules, I think it's the same
> view on ZFS w.r.t. the law, but not necessarily the same view
> w.r.t. morality or business, because the copyright law itself is
> immoral according to the views of many and the business risk depends
> on how much you piss people off.
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