Re: GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders

[Luke-Jr]

On Thursday 02 February 2006 19:11, Christopher Friesen wrote:
> Lee Revell wrote:
> > What nvidia is doing is already illegal under the GPLv2.
>
> I don't think that's been legally proven.
>
> The question is whether it is a derivative work. 

The LGPL deals with only derivative works. The GPL also deals with mere 
*linking*. If glibc were GPL'd, it would be illegal to make an OS based on it 
with a single C program incompatible with the GPL.

> If they ship the binary blob as well as code that interfaces the binary
> blob with the kernel, and the end-user compiles the code together and
> loads it into the kernel, does that necessarily violate the GPL?

The 'code that interfaces the binary blob with the kernel' would then be 
illegal, because the code cannot be both GPL and proprietary. If the code is 
GPL and acceptable for kernel-linking, then under the terms of the GPL, the 
code cannot link to a GPL-incompatible binary blob.
-
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/