[clug] The GPL and kernel modules

[Chris Smart]

On 21/6/06 11:48 AM, "Paul Wayper" <paul.wayper at anu.edu.au> wrote:
>
[snip]
> It's highly 
> influenced by how much money each party has - i.e. what calibre of
> lawyers and legal research it can bring to the case.  It's highly
> influenced by the judge and the pitch of each team and what precedents
> they might have to hand then and there.
[snip]
>
This is one of the main things that concern me with this whole issue. The
idea that the kernel devs will be taken to court by someone or vice versa
and that a WRONG decision is made due to one party being unable to defend
themselves. I think this is what keeps a lot of people silent.

The truth I can accept and abide by. But imagine if q wrong decision is made
and binary modules are made acceptable? People could simply write whatever
closed source binary blob they want and just write a "shim" to hook into the
kernel.

Or, maybe they are outlawed altogether and nVidia, ATI, ndiswrapper etc are
all made illegal for end users and closed down.

Personally, I'd rather go with number 2.

Let's face it, as hard as they try to, courts (esp in the U.S) are not about
finding the truth.

-c