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[Leo Mauler]

--- Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:

> On Thursday 03 April 2008, Jeffrey Watts wrote:
> > On Thu, Apr 3, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Luke -Jr
> <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:
> > >  Torvalds has nothing to do with why I'm 
> > > here. If Linux didn't exist, we'd be using 
> > > either HURD or a BSD kernel.

> > All significant parties - the guy that wrote 
> > the GPL, the guy that wrote Linux - say what 
> > nVidia is doing is okay, and that the issue
> > isn't what they are doing, but is instead a
> > limitation of the license itself.
> 
> Greg, the guy I quoted earlier, is a Linux 
> developer and copyright holder.  Furthermore, 
> none of the developers nor RMS are IP lawyers. 
> The only citation of IP lawyers thus far in 
> this discussion has been that binary modules 
> are illegal.

There's a legal term which you should become aware of:
"estoppel".  In general it protects a party who would
suffer detriment if:

* The defendant has done or said something to 
induce an expectation

* The plaintiff relied (reasonably) on the 
expectation...

* ...and would suffer detriment if that expectation 
were false.

In linux/COPYING we read that Linus has created an
expectation that his copyright doesn't make binary
drivers illegal simply through making system calls:

linux/COPYING says: "This copyright does *not* 
cover user programs that use kernel services by 
normal system calls - this is merely considered 
normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall 
under the heading of "derived work"."

Greg apparently develops code for the Linux kernel,
and owns part of the copyright, without ever reading
the attached documentation of the Linux kernel.

Since Greg continues to develop code despite the
obvious "estoppel" value of Linus' "linux/COPYING" to
companies like nVidia, his comments about "IP lawyers
say binary drivers are illegal" take on the appearance
of FUD.  If he ever took a distribution to court over
including binary-only drivers, or even sued nVidia for
that matter, they'd claim "estoppel" and WIN in court.

And apparently all of the people Greg thinks are "IP
lawyers" aren't actually lawyers (or he's not telling
them everything about the Linux kernel), since they'd
know the value of "estoppel" and tell him that his
claims about binary-only drivers are unenforceable.


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