Re: Possible GPL infringement in Broadcom-based routers

From: Kyle Moffett
Date: Thu Nov 04 2004 - 19:24:24 EST

On Nov 04, 2004, at 18:57, David Schwartz wrote:

Can Broadcom and the vendors "escape" the obligations of the GPL by
shipping those proprietary drivers as modules, or are they violating the
GPL plain and simple by removing the related source code (and showing
irrelevant code to show "proof of good will") ?

That is a contentious issue that has been debated on this group far too
much. In the United States, at least, the answer comes down to the complex
legal question of whether the module is a "derived work" of the Linux kernel
and whether the kernel as shipped with those modules is a "mere
aggregation".

Well, from what I can see of the makefiles and sources they distribute, they
_don't_ distribute it as kernel+modules, they compile their drivers directly
into their kernel:

./arch/mips/brcm-boards/bcm96345/Makefile:EXTRA_CFLAGS += -I$(TOPDIR)/../../targets
./drivers/char/bcm96345/board/Makefile:EXTRA_CFLAGS += -I. -I$(HPATH)/asm/bcm96345 -I$(TOPDIR)/../../targets -fno-exceptions
./Makefile:SUBDIRS +=modulesrc/drivers ../../targets
./Makefile:DRIVERS-y += modulesrc/drivers/kermods.o ../../targets/bp.o

They may call the directory "modulesrc", but it does _NOT_ appear to be
linked as a kernel module, but directly into the kernel. I think that in this
case their build process is too tightly integrated with the kernel to _not_
be a derivative work.

Cheers,
Kyle Moffett

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