On Wed, 5 Mar 2003, Gilad Ben-Yossef wrote: > Eli Billauer wrote: > > I haven't gotten very deep into the GNU licence, and I haven't thought > > this all through. But I'm quite confident that if someone really wants, > > it's possible to release a Linux distro with a vital component, which is > > closed. > > > It depends on your meaning of vital. The only thing you can do is > release a Linux distro with some *added* component that is closed. > Vendors do that all the time: they call it "value added" products. There > are some people who fall to this trap and buy into it, there are some > people who see this "freedom substracted" products as what it is and > ignore it. Either way, it's not *Linux* that is being closed, it's that > specific componant. > > > You don't close the source of the kernel. You close one small crucial > > component of it by rewriting it. This means, that every time a new > > kernel is released, you take its source, make a patch, compile, and > > remove your own little component's source. And distribute. > > > > Does this violate the GPL? I mean, everything that came free is released > > free, and the kernel comes along withonly one small binary file. We've > > *added* something, which isn't free... > > This is exactly what the GPL is built to make impossible or at least non > economical to do. It has been tried numerous times and up till now they > all failed. >
Unless you have Linus's blessing. The whole issue of binary-only modules in the kernel is actually a violation of its license, IIRC. Still they exist. -- 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]
