From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261889AbTJGI2Q (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 04:28:16 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261891AbTJGI2Q (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 04:28:16 -0400 Received: from pentafluge.infradead.org ([213.86.99.235]:51597 "EHLO pentafluge.infradead.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261889AbTJGI2P (ORCPT ); Tue, 7 Oct 2003 04:28:15 -0400 Subject: Re: freed_symbols [Re: People, not GPL [was: Re: Driver Model]] From: David Woodhouse To: Pascal Schmidt Cc: Larry McVoy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Message-Id: <1065515290.22491.253.camel@hades.cambridge.redhat.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.4.5 (1.4.5-2.dwmw2.3) Date: Tue, 07 Oct 2003 09:28:11 +0100 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: dwmw2@infradead.org X-SA-Exim-Scanned: No; SAEximRunCond expanded to false X-Pentafluge-Mail-From: Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 20:28 +0200, Pascal Schmidt wrote: > Now, if the driver has an internal abstraction layer that seperates the > kernel side of things from the real work the driver does, I would agree > that only the abstraction layer is a derived work and has to be GPL'd, > not the rest of the driver. > Most drivers don't work that way because of the additional > overhead. And because making such distinction is pointless, since the GPL'd wrapper and the core driver would not be distributed 'as separate works' but rather 'as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program', where the Program in this case is the GPL'd wrapper part. Hence under the terms of the final paragraph of section 2 of the GPL, the code of the driver would also have to be released under the same terms. -- dwmw2