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Hello Linus, Linus Torvalds wrote: > Similarly, historically there was a much stronger argument for things like > AFS and some of the binary drivers (long forgotten now) for having been > developed totally independently of Linux: they literally were developed > before Linux even existed, by people who had zero knowledge of Linux. That > tends to strengthen the argument that they clearly aren't derived. > > 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.. Since the last time this was mentioned, I have been thinking that this argument can really be read as an invitation to do just what's being described: first implement a driver/module in a non-Linux OS (this may even imply requiring that whoever works on the driver/module have NO Linux experience whatsoever; yes there will always be candidates for this) and then have this driver/module ported to Linux by Linux-aware developers. Sure, one could argue about "intent", but that's going to be really difficult, especially if the right-hand doesn't know what the left-hand is doing. IOW, can't this position be abused as much as, if not more than, publishing an "approved" set of characteristics for non-GPL modules? Just thinking aloud, Karim -- Author, Speaker, Developer, Consultant Pushing Embedded and Real-Time Linux Systems Beyond the Limits http://www.opersys.com || karim@opersys.com || 514-812-4145 - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/ | ||||||||||
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