From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S939296AbXHIM3t (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Aug 2007 08:29:49 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1765504AbXHIM3m (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Aug 2007 08:29:42 -0400 Received: from www.osadl.org ([213.239.205.134]:38524 "EHLO mail.tglx.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1756385AbXHIM3l (ORCPT ); Thu, 9 Aug 2007 08:29:41 -0400 From: =?iso-8859-1?q?Hans-J=FCrgen_Koch?= Organization: Linutronix To: Alan Cox Subject: Re: [PATCH 2/3] UIO: Documentation Date: Thu, 9 Aug 2007 14:29:34 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.9.5 Cc: Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu, Jesper Juhl , Greg Kroah-Hartman , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20070718232332.GA4620@kroah.com> <14166.1186611154@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> <20070809004058.6066fcd1@the-village.bc.nu> In-Reply-To: <20070809004058.6066fcd1@the-village.bc.nu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200708091429.35075.hjk@linutronix.de> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Am Donnerstag 09 August 2007 01:40 schrieb Alan Cox: > > On the other hand, given that we've always said that closed-source stuff in > > userspace is OK, the only way to not let *that* horse out of the barn is to > > not merge UIO at all. > > It really makes no difference whether it is merged or not. The test is > "derivative work" and not 'linking'. > > A user space driver that is unusuable without a specific GPL kernel chunk > is quite likely to be a derived work of the GPL kernel module I disagree. UIO is a documented kernel<->userspace interface, like sysfs or proc. Using your argument, we would also have to say that a userspace software that is unusable without sysfs is a derived work of the kernel. But IANAL, tell me if I missed an important point. > so the > documentation is giving poor advice however I guess you mean this sentence: "if you need to keep some parts of your driver closed source, you can do so without violating the GPL license on the kernel." What would you write instead? Thanks, Hans