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

From: Alan Cox
Date: Thu Feb 07 2008 - 10:14:17 EST


> previous statements which seemed to say, "you've spoken to numerous

Please don't use "seemed to say" and then quote words I've never said.
That's misleading, rude and also awful language style. I've not said
anything is definite because as I said before there is no caselaw.

We know the GPL is enforcable (Germany and US)
We have good reason to believe works can be derivative across all sorts
of boundaries (non computing caselaw, cases that never went to court - eg
objective C)

Nobody has yet sued anyone to my knowledge over the module case because
quite frankly the list of blatant binary only shipping of GPL code
without licence, sources or offers people will keep us busy for quite
some time yet.

I actually don't expect to see that case tested - it isn't in anyones
interest to test it right now. ATI are being good boys at last, the other
big vendors that did binary modules are moving away and in several cases
I know have been told 'no more binary modules' and Nvidia are a company
without a processor in a world where graphics is going to be on CPU soon.
Lets say I don't own any Nvidia shares.

Alan
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