Re: GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
Oleg Goldshmidt wrote: Actually, come to think about it, contrary to what I wrote in the posting that puzzled you, one can argue that a device driver is a piece of software that makes a particular piece of software work, using knowledge of its specific characteristics that are outside of Linux scope. Thus a linux device driver is related to Linux only insofar as it enables the hardware to work with Linux, but the hardware spec it is based on is not Linux-specific, and thus the device driver is not a derivative product of the Linux kernel in this sense, so proprietary drivers are OK. A device driver is basicaly the same for a given device under a given architechure. In each system, the driver gets parameters, takes control of interrupts (if necessary), gets requests and reports status differently. The basic manipulation of the device is the same, e.g. load firmware, set interupts, buffers, etc, start i/o, get the repsonse, etc. While the code may be different (or not) the driver for device X on archiechture Y looks the same no matter what language it is written in. Probably not enough to be restricted by copyright, but enough that anyone who is familiar with writting drivers could spot. Most linux drivers were written the other way arround however. Someone wrote a driver for a device, say a network card, and someone else pulled out the device specific code and stuck in new code for their device. This worked out well in the days when no-one had any idea of how to write a device driver and very few people had a specific device. You could hack together a driver without a lot of prior programing skill and it would work. If there was enough demand, it would get fixed and ocasionaly improved. In the 2.5.x kernels, there is a new method of accessing device drivers. Some drivers have been rewritten, some fixed, some left (now to be broken). Geoff. -- Geoffrey S. Mendelson Bloomberg L.P., BFM (Israel) 2 hours ahead of London, 7 hours ahead of New York. Tel: 972-(0)3-754-1158 Fax 972-(0)3-754-1236 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
Tzafrir Cohen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The linux kernel is licensed under a license that is not exactly the GPL. It is the GPL with an extra clause that allows binary modules (to allow support of certain kinds of hardware, and with certain limitations, but this is really *not* the place to discuss them). I am assuming you mean this: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingOverControlledInterface AFAIK, the Linux kernel does not include this stipulation, albeit Linus's note at the top of /usr/src/linux/COPYING is arguably similar in spirit. Thus, linking binary modules is a bit shaky (you may trust Linus who seems to be quite liberal, but parts of kernel code are copyrighted by others, who may adhere to stricter interpretations). A cautious solution would involve a GPLed (with the additional clause like in the URL above) interface module, and a proprietary module that will only use the facilities provided by the interface module. In addition, if you make sure that whatever your module does makes sense out of the context of the Linux kernel, you are probably covered (this last condition is difficult to satisfy in the case of hardware drivers and such). -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. What do you mean by `make sure that whatever your module does makes sense out of the context of the Linux kernel'? I guess that once I will get that sentence I will be able to understand why it is difficult to satisfy in the case of hardware drivers. -- Shaul Karl, [EMAIL PROTECTED] e t = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
Shaul Karl [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What do you mean by `make sure that whatever your module does makes sense out of the context of the Linux kernel'? I guess that once I will get that sentence I will be able to understand why it is difficult to satisfy in the case of hardware drivers. The whole notion of a derivative product that is central to GPL is about (crudely speaking) is this merely a feature/extension/fix/whatever of this GPLed program or is it a separate piece of software that has a right to exist and does/can do something non-trivial and useful outside of the context of this GPLed program. I would suggest you try to read GPL and what is written about it (search the archives - I posted on the subject before, including some URLs) to try to understand what this central notion of a derivative product is. If it still does not make sense, ask me nicely enough and I *might try* to dig up some notes I made and hopefully _they_ will make some sense. I'll try to illustrate this idea using the following example. AFAIK, (correct me if I am wrong - I just prefer to use something well-known for an example rather than describing the issues that I encountered in my own work, where a need arose to write proprietary kernel modules) CheckPoint's firewall - which is proprietary technology, of course - on Linux works as a kernel module. If you ask a purely legal question about whether or not this is permitted by GPL, one important consideration in determining whether or not this module is a derivative of Linux is whether or not CheckPoint's firewall makes sense outside of the context of Linux. The answer should be yes - the beast can be (and is) used with systems other than Linux, and the particular implementation as a kernel module (thus linked to the GPLed kernel) is just making this product work on Linux. This is not the whole argument, but it's one part of the whole argument why this is legal. Caveat emptor: IANAL, I just tried to understand the issues as well as I could and talked to lawyers at length in the process. Any misunderstandings and misinterpretations are mine, not the lawyers'. Also, please don't ask me to post the full transcripts of my communications with lawyers on the subject: it cost my employer a pretty penny and constitutes valuable intellectual property (in the sense of please do you own homework) - not mine, either. What I wrote above, including the specific example of CP-FW (I never checked myself whether it was indeed implemented as a kernel module, hence the correct me qualifier above - iptables/ipchains are modules, of course), is arguably general knowledge (or my interpretation of it) rather than a part of that intellectual property. Actually, come to think about it, contrary to what I wrote in the posting that puzzled you, one can argue that a device driver is a piece of software that makes a particular piece of software work, using knowledge of its specific characteristics that are outside of Linux scope. Thus a linux device driver is related to Linux only insofar as it enables the hardware to work with Linux, but the hardware spec it is based on is not Linux-specific, and thus the device driver is not a derivative product of the Linux kernel in this sense, so proprietary drivers are OK. I don't know if this or similar line of reasoning is used anywhere to justify proprietary device drivers, or nobody bothers. The cavaliere attitude along the lines of Linus doesn't mind (but are you sure Alan doesn't?) or Rubbini says it's OK [in Linux Device Drivers - OG] so it's OK (I really heard that given as a clinching argument) seems to prevail. It is shaky in the case of device drivers because, obviously, a driver just makes hardware work under Linux, so in this sense it does not have a right to exist outside of Linux. Which talmudic argument wins the day only a lawyer - or a rabbi, or Moshe Bar - both a talmudic scholar and a law student? - http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/06/02/1159242mode=threadtid=106 - can determine. I am neither, and maybe the more learned linux-il members (there are certainly quite a few religious ones; are there any lawyers lurking here?) will pity my feeble attempt to argue both sides. Firewall is a much cleaner case, IMHO, because the rules and the algorithms and the corresponding parts of _software_ are arguably broad and independent of Linux. For a device driver, the independent part is hardware, not software (and GPL does not deal with hardware or HW specs). My suggestion to use a controlled interface layer goes in the same direction. Keep the core of what you are doing proprietary if needed. If you need it to work inside (linked to) the kernel, do your best to separate whatever is needed to make it work in this particular context (I am not using this word in the software sense here) in a separate module, GPL the latter, and add the permissive clause from the FAQ to its license, so that your proprietary stuff can be legally
Re: GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
Tzafrir Cohen [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The linux kernel is licensed under a license that is not exactly the GPL. It is the GPL with an extra clause that allows binary modules (to allow support of certain kinds of hardware, and with certain limitations, but this is really *not* the place to discuss them). I am assuming you mean this: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#LinkingOverControlledInterface AFAIK, the Linux kernel does not include this stipulation, albeit Linus's note at the top of /usr/src/linux/COPYING is arguably similar in spirit. Thus, linking binary modules is a bit shaky (you may trust Linus who seems to be quite liberal, but parts of kernel code are copyrighted by others, who may adhere to stricter interpretations). A cautious solution would involve a GPLed (with the additional clause like in the URL above) interface module, and a proprietary module that will only use the facilities provided by the interface module. In addition, if you make sure that whatever your module does makes sense out of the context of the Linux kernel, you are probably covered (this last condition is difficult to satisfy in the case of hardware drivers and such). -- Oleg Goldshmidt | [EMAIL PROTECTED] A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
On Saturday 01 June 2002 02:41, Shlomi Fish wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
job job, someone has to speak for those who cannt ('cause they are coding
too much) He _is_ right. The day this will happen a big part of freedom
will be ported to win32 platform.
It is legally possible to port GPLed software to Win32. In fact, this has
happened with Cygnus and Friends. This is in a similar spirit to the fact
that GPLed software can be run on proprietary UNIXes.
i was joking. what i meant was that gpl software can be reproduced freely,
while those packages (build open free sources) are not freely available. If
indeed i missread th gpl, kde/gnome duds can not give authorization to that
distros to distribute their packages (something like Linus does not bother
about binary-only kernel modules, even that it violates gpl).
If the packages are distributed under the GPL (in some public way - say
on an FTP site), then they have no way of doing that. If the distributor
(say Caldera) respects the GPL (i.e: supplies the source and lets you
re-distribute the packages themselves) then there's nothing that can
legally been done about GPL software being a part of a proprietary
licensed software. The only think the GPL restricts is linking against
non-GPL compatible code.
Linus Torvalds can allow proprietary modules for the Linux kernel, but
someone can fork the codebase, and then decide not to allow that.
Proprietary modules are allowed due to a general consensos among the
kernel developers.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
what will be
next: per seat or per server licenses in kcontrol?
talking about free win32 software: here is the url for kde 2.2 for windows
(beta 1):
http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net
- diego
--
Disclaimer: These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
yours too.
-- Dave Haynie
--
Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups...
Wait a second - is n a natural number?
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Re: RMS is back again
On Sat, Jun 01, 2002 at 01:26:03AM +0300, Christoph Bugel wrote: On 2002-05-31, Eliran wrote: Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder. Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others joined forces). What next ? Maybe you should explain *why* you disagree with RMS. I think RMS is right. I should've done this last night, instead of just plonking Eliran the cretin. ..___... ../|../|..|..|.. ..||__||..|..Please.do...|.. ./...O.O\__.NOT..|.. /..\...feed..|.. .../..\.\...the.trolls...|.. ../..._\.\.__|.. ./|\\.\.||.. /.|.|.|.|\/.||.. .../...\|_|_|/...|__||.. ../../..\||.||.. ./...|...|./||..--|. .|...|...|//.|..--|. ..*._|..|_|_|_|..|.\-/.. ...*--._--\._.\.//...|.. ./.._.\\._.//...|/.. ...*../...\_./-.|.-.|...|... .*..___.c_c_c_C/.\C_c_c_c... -- Hevensday 10 Forelithe 7466 http://vipe.technion.ac.il/~mulix/ http://syscalltrack.sf.net/ msg19719/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: RMS is back again
- Original Message - From: Christoph Bugel [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Eliran [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 01, 2002 12:26 AM Subject: Re: RMS is back again On 2002-05-31, Eliran wrote: Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder. Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others joined forces). What next ? Maybe you should explain *why* you disagree with RMS. I think RMS is right. I didn't say I disagree with RMS, I just want to see your opinions about it. I'm neutral BTW, Mandrake is not part of UL. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Shlomi Fish wrote:
On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
On Saturday 01 June 2002 02:41, Shlomi Fish wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
job job, someone has to speak for those who cannt ('cause they are coding
too much) He _is_ right. The day this will happen a big part of freedom
will be ported to win32 platform.
It is legally possible to port GPLed software to Win32. In fact, this has
happened with Cygnus and Friends. This is in a similar spirit to the fact
that GPLed software can be run on proprietary UNIXes.
i was joking. what i meant was that gpl software can be reproduced freely,
while those packages (build open free sources) are not freely available. If
indeed i missread th gpl, kde/gnomeduds can not give authorization to that
distros to distribute their packages (something like Linus does not bother
about binary-only kernel modules, even that it violates gpl).
If the packages are distributed under the GPL (in some public way - say
on an FTP site), then they have no way of doing that. If the distributor
(say Caldera) respects the GPL (i.e: supplies the source and lets you
re-distribute the packages themselves) then there's nothing that can
legally been done about GPL software being a part of a proprietary
licensed software. The only think the GPL restricts is linking against
non-GPL compatible code.
Linus Torvalds can allow proprietary modules for the Linux kernel, but
someone can fork the codebase, and then decide notto allow that.
Proprietary modules are allowed due to a general consensos among the
kernel developers.
There is one difference between the two packages:
KDE and gnome are distributed under the gnu (L?)GPL. Anybody can
redistribute blablabla etc.
The linux kernel is licensed under a license that is not exactly the GPL.
It is the GPL with an extra clause that allows binary modules (to allow
support of certain kinds of hardware, and with certain limitations, but
this is really *not* the place to discuss them).
TurboLinux, Caldera and SuSE (I don't know about Connectiva) redistribute
GPLed software, BUT...
They also bundle this software with their own installers (that probably do
a pretty good job, otherwise people woldn't have bought them). The whole
distribution is not published under the GPL or any similar license.
So legally all they have to make sure is that all of their packages (or at
least, the GPLed and LGPLed ones), including the source, are publicly
available from their FTP site (they actually could get away with less,but
there are practical reason for that)
Don't like this? choose a different distro. Mandrake, Redhat and Debian,
for instance, are distros that are completely free (installer and
packageing under the GPL or something very similar).
--
Tzafrir Cohen
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir
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Re: GPL Nuances [was Re: RMS is back again]
On Sat, 1 Jun 2002, Shlomi Fish [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Don't like this? choose a different distro. Mandrake, Redhat and Debian, .. Some of the software contained in those distributions is not free (e.g: Netscape 4.72). But the distribution as a whole is. I don't know about Mandrake/Red Hat, but this is simply not true for Debian. The Debian operating system *does not* include any non-DFSG (Debian Free Software Guidelines) Free software. If such software allows redistribution, Debian allows it to be uploaded to non-free as a service to our users. However, this does *not* mean that it somehow becomes a part of the Debian operating system. Only what is in main and main/non-US is a part of the Debian operating system. Here is a quote from the Debian Social Contract, available at http://www.debian.org/social_contract ''' 1. Debian Will Remain 100% Free Software We promise to keep the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution entirely free software. As there are many definitions of free software, we include the guidelines we use to determine if software is free below. We will support our users who develop and run non-free software on Debian, but we will never make the system depend on an item of non-free software. ... 5. Programs That Don't Meet Our Free-Software Standards We acknowledge that some of our users require the use of programs that don't conform to the Debian Free Software Guidelines. We have created contrib and non-free areas in our FTP archive for this software. The software in these directories is not part of the Debian system, although it has been configured for use with Debian. ''' The DFSG is available at the same URL. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
RMS is back again
Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder. Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others joined forces). What next ? Regards, Eliran
Re: RMS is back again
job job, someone has to speak for those who cannt ('cause they are coding too
much) He _is_ right. The day this will happen a big part of freedom will be
ported to win32 platform.
- diego
On Friday 31 May 2002 22:29, Eliran wrote:
Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder.
Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others
joined forces).
What next ?
Regards,
Eliran
--
The Rabbits The Cow
Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk;
That doesn't mention their habits. One end is moo, the other, milk.
-- Ogden Nash
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Re: RMS is back again
On 2002-05-31, Eliran wrote: Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder. Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others joined forces). What next ? Maybe you should explain *why* you disagree with RMS. I think RMS is right. BTW, Mandrake is not part of UL. = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: RMS is back again
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
job job, someone has to speak for those who cannt ('cause they are coding too
much) He _is_ right. The day this will happen a big part of freedom will be
ported to win32 platform.
It is legally possible to port GPLed software to Win32. In fact, this has
happened with Cygnus and Friends. This is in a similar spirit to the fact
that GPLed software can be run on proprietary UNIXes.
The way I see it, RMS speaks only for himself. Some people agree with him
or with some things he says; others, like me, usually don't. But there's a
difference between a leader and a spokesperson.
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
- diego
On Friday 31 May 2002 22:29, Eliran wrote:
Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder.
Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others
joined forces).
What next ?
Regards,
Eliran
--
The Rabbits The Cow
Here is a verse about rabbits The cow is of the bovine ilk;
That doesn't mention their habits.One end is moo, the other, milk.
-- Ogden Nash
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the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command
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--
Shlomi Fish[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Home Page: http://t2.technion.ac.il/~shlomif/
Home E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Let's suppose you have a table with 2^n cups...
Wait a second - is n a natural number?
=
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Re: RMS is back again
On Saturday 01 June 2002 02:41, Shlomi Fish wrote:
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Diego Iastrubni wrote:
job job, someone has to speak for those who cannt ('cause they are coding
too much) He _is_ right. The day this will happen a big part of freedom
will be ported to win32 platform.
It is legally possible to port GPLed software to Win32. In fact, this has
happened with Cygnus and Friends. This is in a similar spirit to the fact
that GPLed software can be run on proprietary UNIXes.
i was joking. what i meant was that gpl software can be reproduced freely,
while those packages (build open free sources) are not freely available. If
indeed i missread th gpl, kde/gnome duds can not give authorization to that
distros to distribute their packages (something like Linus does not bother
about binary-only kernel modules, even that it violates gpl). what will be
next: per seat or per server licenses in kcontrol?
talking about free win32 software: here is the url for kde 2.2 for windows
(beta 1):
http://kde-cygwin.sourceforge.net
- diego
--
Disclaimer: These opinions are my own, though for a small fee they be
yours too.
-- Dave Haynie
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Re: RMS is back again
On Fri, 31 May 2002, Eliran wrote: Well, here is another response of Richard M. Stallman the FSF founder. Now he condemns the UnitedLinux (Suse, Turbo Linux, Mandrake and others joined forces). Let's get some facts straight first: SuSE, TurboLinux, Caldera and Conectiva (not Mandrake) recently annonced UnitedLinux: http://unitedlinux.com There are still many unclear things about this new distribution. From what I understand this is going to be a core of a distribution, rather than a complete distribution. Each of the four companies will add value to its version and market it seperately. Currently Caldera licenses its OpenLinux distribution in a per-seat license, and there were some hints that this would be the chosen (or preffered?) license for the new distribution. This got RMS very upset, and hence his remarks. RMS here is in his usual role of a watchdog. It is possible that he is barking too soon, though. -- Tzafrir Cohen mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.technion.ac.il/~tzafrir = To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word unsubscribe in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
