Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause?
From: Kendall Bennett
Date: Fri Dec 05 2003 - 14:17:07 EST
Jesse Pollard <jesse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> It is if you are referring to the Kernel. Look at the include
> files. They are licened under GPL.
>
> Look at the include files for applications. They are licenced
> under LGPL.
Really? Have you looked at the include files for Linux? The standard C
include files that nearly every program uses will end up also *including*
Linux kernel header files in order to build programs for Linux. Not all
programs will end up including those files, but a very large portion
will.
If you don't believe me, do a grep under /usr/include/sys on your machine
for 'linux', and see how many of the header files include stuff from
/usr/include/linux. All the files under /usr/include/linux are part of
the kernel, so theoretically under the pure GPL, not LGPL.
Then again I say 'theoretically' because once again there is nary a
kernel header file in sight that actually *has* a GPL license header
attached! So who knows what license those files are *really* under.
Regards,
---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com
~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~
-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/