from the libertarian newspaper

[Luke -Jr]

On Wednesday 24 January 2007 13:06, Bradley Hook wrote:
> Jon Pruente wrote:
> > On 1/22/07, Luke -Jr <luke at dashjr.org> wrote:
> >> Linus is wrong. He's not the only copyright holder, either.
>
> Linus can be wrong all he wants, who cares? Have you ever read the GPL?
> Only derivative works, or in simple terms "a modification of the
> original", are required to perpetuate the GPL. *If*, by some absurd
> stretch of logic, you claim that *any* kernel driver, even if created
> outside of the kernel source tree, is a derivative work, then the
> technicality is still easily overcome.

No, the GPL also requires anything linking to be GPL-compatible.

> It has been explained repeatedly on the LKML. To circumvent the
> licensing issue, a developer need only write a "wrapper" kernel module
> that then interfaces with other, non-GPLed programs/code. Remember, the
> GPL does not dictate what your derivitive work is allowed to do while
> running. As long as the non-GPLed work can be compiled independently of
> any GPLed code (rather trivial to make happen), then the GPL can not be
> forced on it.

Each part needs to be *linkable* independently of any non-GPL-compatible code.