Garrett D'Amore writes: > Nabil Rahiman wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I am trying to port the lnux device driver into Solaris platform. > > Just a heads up. Unless you wrote the original Linux driver, or have > explicit permission from the author to perform such a port, generally > you cannot do this. At least one prominent author of Linux device > drivers (Donald Becker) has been very vocal about his willingness to > bring lawsuits against anyone who tries to port (or otherwise create > derivative works) his code to any operating system which is not GPLv2. > At the moment, I believe Linux is the only major OS that carries a GPLv2.
Anybody can sue anyone they want for any reason at any time (at least in the US). That shouldn't really be the deciding factor, because there's no shelter. If your plan is to integrate the driver into one of the OpenSolaris consolidations, then you may well have a problem, because most of them have requirements on licensing. However, if you plan to distribute on your own, then more power to you. Go for it. I fail to see what in the GPLv2 prohibits you from doing that -- even against the original author's wishes. In fact, the license clearly stipulates otherwise. His threat sounds rather empty to me. (I'm no lawyer, but my personal take on it is that the existing kernel-space DDI is exactly the same level of legal isolation as the user-space ABI. It looks perfectly plausible to me to assert that inclusion is mere aggregation and thus not a problem -- unlike Linux, where there is no clear DDI, and no good way to separate out what's "derived." Apparently, the experts who've looked at the issue on behalf of the consolidations are _not_ so persuaded. I suspect the issue is much more a matter of determining risk due to ambiguity than it is precise evaluation of the wording.) -- James Carlson, Solaris Networking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sun Microsystems / 35 Network Drive 71.232W Vox +1 781 442 2084 MS UBUR02-212 / Burlington MA 01803-2757 42.496N Fax +1 781 442 1677 _______________________________________________ driver-discuss mailing list [email protected] http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/driver-discuss
