RE: Would I be violating the GPL?

[David Schwartz]

> If you even take 2 minutes to actually inspect the NVIDIA video
> driver sources
> (extract the .run file with --extract-only, and cd to usr/src/nv)
> you'll find
> the "glue" which is provided as source, but not under the GPL,
> does indeed
> #include kernel headers at compile time.
>
> It does not distribute them, however, but it is completely nonsensical to
> class this as having "no dependency". It has a compile time and runtime
> dependency on the current kernel. What driver wouldn't?

	If I write source code that includes "stdio.h", I can do whatever I want
with that source code, and I'm not bound by the license of any particular
file that happens to be called "stdio.h". On the other hand, if I compile
that source code including *your* "stdio.h" file, the resulting compiled
output is likely a derived work of your file.

	So the source code is not a derivative work of any GPL'd files. The
compiled driver may be, precisely because it contains bits and pieces of the
header files.

	DS


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