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SubjectRe: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers
v j wrote:
> This is in reference to the following thread:
>
> http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/14/63
>
> I am not sure if this is ever addressed in LKML, but linux is _very_
> popular in the embedded space. We (an embedded vendor) chose Linux 3
> years back because of its lack of royalty model, robustness and
> availability of infinite number of open-source tools.
[...]
> However we have a worrying trend here. If at some point it becomes
> illegal to load our modules into the linux kernel, then it is
> unacceptable to us. We would have been better off choosing VxWorks or
> OSE 3 years ago when we made an OS choice. The fact that Linux is
> becoming more and more closed is very very alarming.
>
Question to the world here: Distros make, as a matter of course, a
series of modifications to the Linux Kernel so that their modules or
features work. What stops VJ making a patchset which effectively
s/EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL/EXPORT_SYMBOL/g 's the kernel source then
distributing that under the GPL? He then supplies his un-GPL'd modules
to the world which just happen to only run on the modified kernel. I've
read the GPL of course (IANAL though) and I can't see what this violates
except the /spirit/ of the license. Don't get me wrong, I'm strongly
against anyone doing what I just mentioned, I believe it to be immoral
taking someone's GPL'd code and mangling it in such a way. I speak as
an embedded developer myself whose company decided that running our code
under Linux and distributing our code under the GPL was far preferable
to running closed-source software on a closed-source platform.

I'll finish off to VJ: If you want to be alarmed, go ahead and switch
to VxWorks, the Linux community will live on. It might have a smaller
user-base in embedded-land but that's the nature of the beast. A large
user-base doesn't mean much to something like linux unless it comes with
a large, open-source-minded developer-base.

--Ben.
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