> -----Original Message-----
> From: Paul Davis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
> Sent: 11 September 2001 16:39
> To: Phil Thompson
> Cc: 'Jaroslav Kysela'; '[EMAIL PROTECTED]'
> Subject: Re: [Alsa-devel] User Space Device Driver
>
>
> >Given that, technically, I can use ALSA with a user-space
> device driver, am
> >I right in thinking that the user-space driver must have a
> license that is
> >GPL compatible?
> >
> >Or is a closed source driver allowed?
>
> alsalib is released under the GPL. hence, any applications that to use
> it must be under the GPL. since such an application would clearly be
> utterly designed around the alsalib and alsa kernel API, you could not
> use dynamic linking to circumvent this.
As alsalib is released under the LGPL, apps that use it don't need to be
under the GPL.
As a counter example, the OSS compatibility library is released under the
GPL, so I agree that apps linked against that must have a GPL compatible
license.
The issue then becomes whether a closed source driver can be linked in with
an LGPL library. The LGPL seems to split uses of a library into either
"works that use the library" or "works that are derived from the library". I
assume that a user space device driver would fall into the first category,
as the driver does not include any library code. Therefore, according to
section 5 of the LGPL, the LGPL does not have to be applied to the device
driver.
However, unless it can be argued that the closed source driver falls under
the scope of the following exception in the GPL...
However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not
include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or
binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of
the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that
component itself accompanies the executable.
...it will not be possible to use a GPL licensed app with alsalib and the
closed source driver.
This is my current understanding - please contradict me if I'm wrong.
Regards,
Phil
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