Kernel Programming Questions

[Vadim Klishko]

On Sunday, May 25, 2008 3:25 PM, Greg KH wrote:

> On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 12:07:41PM -0600, Vadim Klishko wrote:
>> On Sunday, May 25, 2008 9:37 AM, Greg KH wrote:
>> 
>> > On Sun, May 25, 2008 at 09:40:32AM +0100, James Chapman wrote:
>> >> 
>> >> Is the optional "library" proprietary (binary only)? If so, think 
>> >> carefully about GPL implications. Adding a simple GPL driver to expose 
>> >> proprietary hooks isn't good...
>> > 
>> Yes, that was exactly the idea.
>> 
>> > It's not only, "not good", it's flat out illegal and violates the
>> > license of the kernel.  Do not do this at all if you are thinking you
>> > can keep something from being released under the GPL.
>> > 
>> I thought there was a legal way of doing it as described here:
>> http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLIncompatibleLibs
> 
> The kernel is not a "system library", nor does it interact with one at
> all.
> 
> Also note that the kernel is covered under GPLv2, not v3, which is the
> description of most of the answers on that page.
> 
> There is no way to create a "GPL Condom" to protect your code in the
> kernel from being released under the GPLv2, sorry, that just is not
> possible.  For lots of prior art on this, and lots of failed legal
> attempts to do this, please see the Samba group, there is a long history
> of them prevailing on this topic.
> 
Sorry, I couldn't find anything on www.samba.org. Could you please provide a link?

On the other hand, ATI specifically says that their Linux driver is not open-source (http://ati.amd.com/products/catalyst/linux.html#4). Are they doing it illegally? How come no one is after them?

> thanks,
> 
> greg k-h