Hi everybody! First of all, thank you for your input ... makes things much clearer now! No legal actions prepared ========================= Although there were some roumors and signs, i am very happy to tell you that neither Victor nor Paolo intend to do legal actions against each other: Victor Yodaiken: "[...] We are not planning any legal actions against anyone although we are being careful to get legal opinions. [...]" Paolo Mantegazza: "[...] I do not know what Yodaiken is doing but I'm not preparing any legal action. [...]" Additions/modifications to GPL in Linux Kernel ============================================== As Robert Schwebel already mentioned, there is an addenum/preface to the linux kernel licence file: 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". [...] This statement only clearifies the use of user space programs, but not the usage of kernel space modules. Two years ago, L.T. wrote the following statement on the kernel mailing list. As none of the other copyright holders (the kernel developers) "dared" :-) to object to this statement, it can be taken as officialy granted: [...] I _allow_ binary-only modules. I allow them because I think that sometimes I cannot morally require people to make sources available to projects like AFS where those sources existed before Linux. [...] So, you can now argue that adding kernel space modules also "is merely considered normal use of the kernel" and thus "does *not* fall under the heading of 'derived'". For this reason, RTAI-modules can be distributed under LGPL and RT-Linux-modules under any licence. But the kernel-patch itself has to be GPL, because GPLed files are modified directly instead of creating new files that can be compiled as modules. And the Patent? =============== Concerning the software licences, the world looks fine, again. But there is still the patent left! It basicaly says "[...] use of the Patented Process is permitted, without fee or royalty, when used: A. By software licensed under the GPL [...]" Means, you will have to pay a patent licence fee to fsmlabs when using LGPLed RTAI in US. You don't have to pay a fee when using RTAI and/or RT-Linux in contries where US patents have no legal effects. Especialy in europe, where software patents are only allowed under very rare circumstances, the RT-Linux patent very likly wouldn't be granted, Victor pointed me to a patent granted in Germany that is similar to his patent. But as there are thousends of patents filled and granted illegaly, that doesn't mean very much: this patent can probably be deleted within a short amount of time. In US, the situation is different, and it might not be a good idea to do legal actions to delete the patent there, too: There are several similar patents around that could apply to Victors process. Means: things could be even worse when deleting the patent, because the other patent holders could do a much worse patent licence (i.e. you have to pay even when using GPLed code). At least, Victors patent mostly want's to protect the mechanism, so that no other company can claim their rights, but there are probably thousands of code fragments in the linux kernel that are covered by US patents - and nobody cares, because on one hand, it is not easy for the patent holders to find out whom to sue and on the other hand, a patent-suit can be very expensive and the result is oftenly uncertain. Also Victor patent forces developers to uphold free software standards: "get millions lines of code for free, but return your thousends lines of code you have created back to the community." On the other hand, propietary kernel modules mean "money is floating around" and fsmlabs just want to have some small pieces of the cake. Comments? Bernhard -- [rtl] --- To unsubscribe: echo "unsubscribe rtl" | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] OR echo "unsubscribe rtl <Your_email>" | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- For more information on Real-Time Linux see: http://www.rtlinux.org/rtlinux/
