Re: [PATCH] USB: mark USB drivers as being GPL only

From: Chris Friesen
Date: Tue Feb 05 2008 - 18:35:46 EST


David Newall wrote:
That being said, a module can be written such that it only dynamically links with the kernel. Ndiswrapper is an example of how this can be done: None of the drivers that work under ndiswrapper make any direct use of the kernel, not in any way, indeed a wrapper could be written for a different operating system.

The issue is all about "derivative works" in copyright law.

Ndiswrapper is in a good position because the closed-source drivers were originally written for another OS so it's pretty well impossible to argue that they are derived from linux.

However, if I were to write a new GPL shim and then a new closed-source module that uses the shim to access kernel symbols, it is entirely possible that a court could rule that my closed-source module is a derivative work of the linux kernel because it was written specifically to run on linux.

On the other hand if I were to sit down and write an OS-agnostic proprietary chunk of code, and then write a new GPL shim to use it under linux (and maybe other shim layers for other OS's as well), I _might_ be okay. But I would have to be prepared to prove that the proprietary code was not derived from the Linux kernel.

Chris
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