Good question. From what I read, inline functions ARE copyright-able,
but of course, that is also controversial:
https://lwn.net/Articles/53964/
Stallman's FSF statement implies that it depends on the /amount /of GPL
code in the inline functions:
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/1529238/rms-on-header-files-and-derivative-works
Maybe ten lines?
https://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/1999/07/msg00605.html
On 4/14/2022 7:33 AM, Petro Karashchenko wrote:
The PR contains the implementation of inline functions. Are those handled
in the same way as symbols definitions?
Best regards,
Petro
ср, 13 квіт. 2022 р. о 16:10 Alan Carvalho de Assis<acas...@gmail.com>
пише:
Simple header files, for example only symbols definitions are not
considered derivative work, more info:
https://linux.slashdot.org/story/11/03/20/1529238/rms-on-header-files-and-derivative-works
On 4/13/22, Gregory Nutt<spudan...@gmail.com> wrote:
We are having a PRhttps://github.com/apache/incubator-nuttx/pull/5755
that
is intended to update "include/nuttx/wireless/ieee80211/ieee80211.h"
header
in NuttX code tree.
the changes are the sync with
https://github.com/torvalds/linux/blob/master/include/linux/ieee80211.h
verison that is available under: "/* SPDX-License-Identifier:
GPL-2.0-only
*/".
Basically the changes are a reformatted code from the original Linux
header
file.
I have the question if we are allowed to do it from a legal perspective?
Probably not. Any code that derives from GPL is also GPL. Reformatting
does not effect that; the code still derives from GPL.
But there are caveats for Linux header files. I am not an attorney, so
I don't want claim too much knowledge on this. But use of header files
that define operating system interfaces are considered "normal use" the
SPDX referenced in the Linux COPYING file. That is
https://spdx.org/licenses/Linux-syscall-note.html :
/NOTE! 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". Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free
Software Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the
Linux kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it./
//
/Linus Torvalds/
