From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S964843AbXBPNok (ORCPT ); Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:44:40 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S964845AbXBPNok (ORCPT ); Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:44:40 -0500 Received: from ug-out-1314.google.com ([66.249.92.175]:41061 "EHLO ug-out-1314.google.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S964843AbXBPNoj (ORCPT ); Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:44:39 -0500 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=beta; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=IM5wYTkHHXpGUkc1Xi4EYe8+LxtN4oQ5GTwF9xMGe1HK99/GYYX7GatTQ8GLIV1f+AhTasitu0Q5fBm1YgFsfKevnZQLbrKTmXSrPVAu41JTkKOt5+c/n24RRewCe4bRoa4pZMgp3I0tU4Fq2TP0QK251srYR31UoebGMuQwgS4= Message-ID: <3d57814d0702160544o14a51278k511b65f51ca1d229@mail.gmail.com> Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 23:44:35 +1000 From: "Trent Waddington" To: "Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu" Subject: Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers Cc: "v j" , "David Lang" , "Scott Preece" , "Miguel Ojeda" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org In-Reply-To: <200702160952.l1G9qMsY025262@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <9b3a62ab0702142115m4ea7d2c0m6869eb64ef3ee14e@mail.gmail.com> <20070215165339.GB5285@thunk.org> <9b3a62ab0702151020k5bd0e4c9w763e1b01288ccc4f@mail.gmail.com> <653402b90702151102n3a3e0435r837e2191de79b2b@mail.gmail.com> <7b69d1470702151712x685f3e0eqf6198f9bb7f2394e@mail.gmail.com> <9b3a62ab0702152148p57db8b1dgd42b1c6fb15dccbb@mail.gmail.com> <3d57814d0702152157n461a9f0cta0a0c20e9a592d83@mail.gmail.com> <9b3a62ab0702152225m3893318by95cb8b260c74bfc2@mail.gmail.com> <200702160952.l1G9qMsY025262@turing-police.cc.vt.edu> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 2/16/07, Valdis.Kletnieks@vt.edu wrote: > As others have pointed out, NVidia and ATI think they're in an OK spot with > the way *they* do *their* module, Man, your sentence is so vague here that I almost don't feel the need to correct you, almost. I don't think NVIDIA or ATI think they can get away with distributing a binary only kernel module because of any of the technical measures they take to seperate themselves from the kernel code.. That's done for good technical reasons, they ship *BSD drivers too. I think the reason why they feel safe that no-one will sue them (and no company wants to be sued, even big ones by individual kernel developers) is because so few kernel developers have actually sued anyone for writing proprietary drivers. So here's my message to VJ, from a legal standpoint: don't worry about it. No-one who authored code you're linking your code against is likely to go on a suing spree anytime soon, they're too busy coding. You've already got my message from a moral point of view (and I'm still terribly confused about your reply). Trent