Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 31 Oct 2001 11:29:26 -0600 | From | Timur Tabi <> | Subject | Re: Module Licensing? |
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Rik van Riel wrote:
> Since your program, which happens to consist of one open > source part and one proprietary part, is partly a derived > work from the kernel source (by using kernel header files > and the inline functions in it) your whole work must be > distributed under the GPL.
I contest your meaning of the word "work". The open source portion of my module is one "work", and the closed source portion is another "work". I could deliver these two works as separate tarballs, if I wanted.
Not only that, but the closed-source portion of my driver is not derived from any GPL program, so the phrase "contains or is derived from the Program" does not apply to it, because it:
1. Does not contain any part of any GPL Program 2. Is not derived from any GPL Program
>>Our open source bits are GPL because they are "derived" from the kernel >>source, which is also GPL. > > "open source bits" ... from "the work as a whole" ?
The point I'm trying to make is that I can play the semantics game very easily, and still not be forced to open-source the closed-source portions of my driver. Because of the way Linux loads modules, I could take all the open-source portions and link them into one .o file, and then insmod that .o file without any problems. Then the closed-source portion would also be insmod'ed. The only issue is that closed-source portion would fail to load if the open-source portion is not already loaded.
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