Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 6 Dec 2005 02:35:49 +0100 | From | Andrea Arcangeli <> | Subject | Re: Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario |
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On Mon, Dec 05, 2005 at 05:20:16PM -0800, Tim Bird wrote: > This interpretation puts kernel developers in the > position of making the legal decision about which
An hint can hardly defined as a "legal decision".
An hint _only_ means "be careful you _might_ be illegal".
"might be" is hardly a "legal deicision", infact it's not decision at all.
It's like a "you should check your stuff to be sure you're ok".
This is the way I understood it at least...
> Different developers are likely to have > different viewpoints on which interfaces pose risks.
The way I understood it, is that you may be breaking the GPL even if you don't circumvent any _GPL tag. You've to check your stuff yourself, and if you have troubles because of a _GPL tag, it means you must check it even more closely because you got an explicit _warning_. A warning isn't a "legal deicsion", it's just a warning.
> I guess Linus gets the last call (as usual), > so there's some possibility of some amount > of uniformity here.
agreed.
> Most kernel developers will naturally tend > towards making more symbols EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL, > whether there's valid legal basis for it or not.
Could be, but then those developers would be wrong. We're not required to make a symbol as _GPL to make the module illegal. So we should be reasonable.
> (Please let me know if there's a lawyer somewhere > reviewing the insertion of EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPLs)
I don't think there is one, and there needs to be no one, because the _GPL tag is not a legal decision, is an hint given from programmers to lawyers. Programmers may be totally wrong, but we do our best to help on the legal side too.
> David currently suggests that *all* interfaces > be so designated. I suspect he strongly believes > that any use of a kernel interface creates a > derivative work. I have a different opinion.
This question I don't want to answer because I'm a programmer, this requires a lawyer because this is the real _legal_decision_: what is a derived work of the kernel is the only thing that decides what is legal and illegal.
> Well, if it makes sense to have developers giving out legal > advice, then I guess so.
;) Of course I meant it makes perfect sense that it's _only_ an "hint". - 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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