Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 11 Dec 2003 15:03:23 +0100 (MET) | From | Geert Uytterhoeven <> | Subject | Re: Linux GPL and binary module exception clause? |
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On Thu, 11 Dec 2003, Rob Landley wrote: > On Wednesday 10 December 2003 10:34, Larry McVoy wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 08:21:52AM -0800, Linus Torvalds wrote: > > > There's a fundamental difference between "plugins" and "kernel modules": > > > intent. > > > > Which is? How is it that you can spend a page of text saying a judge > > doesn't care about technicalities and then base the rest of your argument > > on the distinction between a "plugin" and a "kernel module"? > > Because there are distinctions that aren't technicalities? > > Strange but true...
Let's take a fresh look, from a historical perspective...
We had a GPLed kernel with (lots of) GPLed drivers. Even too many drivers, since a kernel with all drivers enabled is too large to fit in 640 KiB! (of course we elitist m68k users didn't suffer from that limitation ;-)
So someone solved this problem and found a way to reduce the kernel image size below the magical limit by moving driver code to `loadable kernel modules'. A nice side-effect was that people (read: distributors) now no longer needed a bloated kernel that took ages to start during device probe. They could provide a small kernel instead, with separate driver modules for all possible hardware, to be loaded at boot time or on demand.
Hence technically loadable kernel modules are just a work-around to allow larger kernels, and all loadable kernel code should be treated the same as in-kernel code. So they are clearly derived from the kernel.
Later people started to realize that: (a) They can build out-of-tree modules, i.e. drivers that can't even be built in, (b) They can build out-of-tree modules and make them non-GPL.
And (b) is where the problem started...
Gr{oetje,eeting}s,
Geert
-- Geert Uytterhoeven -- There's lots of Linux beyond ia32 -- geert@linux-m68k.org
In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that. -- Linus Torvalds
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