Messages in this thread |  | | From | "Roy Murphy" <> | Date | Fri, 19 Oct 2001 13:03:56 -0500 | Subject | Re: MODULE_LICENSE and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL |
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'Twas brillig when Taral scrobe: >You're quite right. Module insertion is linking. And distributing a >kernel with binary-only modules already inserted would be a GPL >violation. What modules do is let people do the link at the last stage >-- the end user. The GPL does not restrict what end-users do with your >code if it doesn't involve redistribution.
The point was made earlier that a module might include some code expanded from a macro in a kernel header file. Producers of binary modules could adopt a "clean room" approach (as the first cloners of the IBM PC BIOS did) and have one group write a technical specification for any necessary kernel headers and have a second group implement substitute headers from the specification.
>I also think this is somewhat ridiculous. If I (the binary module >maker) distribute a program which effectively replicates the >functionality of insmod without the licence checking, and distribute >that program with my module, am I violating any restrictions? I don't >think so, since it's the end-user that ends up linking the kernel to >the module. No linked products are actually distributed...
In the US it may be a violation of the DCMA prohibition on circumvention of "effective access controls" (and perhaps violations of corresponding laws in some European countries). Though that's a whole 'nother huge legal morass.
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