Messages in this thread |  | | From | Mark Salisbury <> | Subject | Re: GPL Question | Date | Fri, 27 Oct 2000 13:16:10 -0400 |
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On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Jason Wohlgemuth wrote: > Consider this: > > A subsystem that is statically built into the Linux Kernel is modified > to allow the registration of a structure containing function pointers. > > The function pointers corrolate to a set of functions within that subsystem. > If the new structure of pointers has been registered, the original > functions will call the new functions in the structure passing all > arguments and returning the return value of the new function. > > With this said, if no structure has been registered, then no > functionality is degraded within the kernel. Only the loss of some cpu > time to check the pointers at the top of the old functions. > > Now, if a module is loaded that registers a set of functions that have > increased functionality compared to the original functions, if that > modules is not based off GPL'd code, must the source code of that module > be released under the GPL? > > Thanks in advance, > Jason Wohlgemuth
the api of the module would be a reimplementation of a GPL'd api (the function names may have changed, but the base behaviors must be equivalent)
so the question in simple terms might phrased as:
is the API under GPL, or is it the code or are both?
I think the answer is both. -- /*------------------------------------------------** ** Mark Salisbury | Mercury Computer Systems ** ** mbs@mc.com | ** **------------------------------------------------** ** "WYGIWYD - What You Get Is What You Deserve" ** **------------------------------------------------*/
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