Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 25 Oct 2006 23:33:55 +0200 | From | David Weinehall <> | Subject | Re: incorrect taint of ndiswrapper |
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On Wed, Oct 25, 2006 at 05:06:32PM -0400, Pavel Roskin wrote: > On Wed, 2006-10-25 at 21:30 +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > > Ar Mer, 2006-10-25 am 16:11 -0400, ysgrifennodd Pavel Roskin: > > > I don't see any legal reasons behind this restriction. A driver under > > > GPL should be able to use any exported symbols. EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is a > > > technical mechanism of enforcing GPL against non-free code, but > > > ndiswrapper is free. The non-free NDIS drivers are not using those > > > symbols. > > > > The combination of GPL wrapper and the NDIS driver as a work is not free > > (in fact its questionable if its even legal to ship such a combination > > together). > > So, the problem is on the legal side. > > But I have to ask - which NDIS driver? I can write a free NDIS driver > and use it with ndiswrapper. You can say it's a stupid thing to do, but > once you talk about the legality, the only argument should be > legal/illegal. Besides, it may be a not such a bad idea for a ReactOS > developer writing a ReactOS driver to test it with Linux. > > Also, nothing should prevent me from combining ndiswrapper with any > Windows driver in the privacy of my home as long as I don't distribute > anything. GPL doesn't have use restrictions (although the driver may > have an EULA). > > Since the problem is with USB symbols, I can split the USB part from > ndiswrapper and call it ndiswrapper-usb. Then ndiswrapper-usb will be > calling the GPL-only symbols while ndiswrapper will be loading the > non-free modules. Good luck catching that! It's actually a change that > makes sense technically. Imagine what a change specifically intended to > fool Linux would do! > > I don't see how the kernel can detect the cases where GPL is actually > violated without creating problem for honest users. Kernel code is not > a police department, let alone a court of law. Let's not create out own > DRM right in the kernel! > > Companies that ship ndiswrapper with non-free modules may be breaking > copyright laws already. But it's not something that should be fought by > kernel patches.
No matter how the legal situation looks like: do we *want* to support drivers that use an API totally alien to Linux concepts?
Personally I feel that no matter if they are legal or not, we should not cater to such drivers in the first place. If it's trickier to use Windows API-drivers under Linux than to write a native Linux driver, big deal... We don't want Windows-drivers. We want native drivers.
Regards: David Weinehall -- /) David Weinehall <tao@acc.umu.se> /) Northern lights wander (\ // Maintainer of the v2.0 kernel // Dance across the winter sky // \) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ (/ Full colour fire (/ - 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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