[clug] The GPL and kernel modules

[Peter Barker]

On Wed, 21 Jun 2006, Cameron Patrick wrote:

> Linus has explicitly said that he's fine with proprietary modules for
> Linux, and I believe that the copy of the GPL distributed with the
> kernel is modified to contain a statement to this effect.  (Hmm, after
> checking it actually says that user applications running on the kernel
> are considered as excempt from being 'derived works', which is somewhat
> different.)

...

> Linus's perspective on the matter:
>    http://linuxmafia.com/faq/Kernel/proprietary-kernel-modules.html

A somehwat more recent article:
http://kerneltrap.org/node/1735
(search for Linus)

To quote:
--
In contrast, these days it would be hard to argue that a new driver or
filesystem was developed without any thought of Linux. I think the NVidia
people can probably reasonably honestly say that the code they ported had
_no_ Linux origin. But quite frankly, I'd be less inclined to believe that
for some other projects out there..

Linus
--

> Cameron

Yours,
-- 
Peter Barker                          |   N    _--_|\ /---- Barham, Vic
Programmer,Sysadmin,Geek              | W + E /     /\
pbarker at barker.dropbear.id.au         |   S   \_,--?_*<-- Canberra
You need a bigger hammer.             |             v    [35S, 149E]
"Peter is apathetic, and I'm vaguely apathetic" -- Rachel, thinking of organising a movie trip