Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 08:58:28 EDT From: TM4525@aol.com To: tedm@toybox.placo.com Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: GPL vs BSD Licence Message-ID: <111.3bb62c91.2eb39874@aol.com>
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In a message dated 10/29/04 2:10:23 AM Eastern Daylight Time, tedm@toybox.placo.com writes: > the GPL. I seem to recall the discussion was about nVidia's closed > source, binary only drivers but, according to Linus, affects all similar > products. I'm unsure if and how this issue is being dealt with. >It is. It is the stated policy of the FSF that loadable kernel modules >are considered part of the GPL work and therefore must be GPL'ed >themselves. That is where all this is coming from. It is kind of >a personal vendetta/issue with RMS I understand. This position has >also created lots of controversy as you might imagine. The FSF doesnt have standing with Linux so they can blow as hard as they like and no one will really care. The FSF is a bunch of weenies whos only mission in life is to abolish anything thats not open source. Linus has stated that, if software was written for a different O/S and was ported to linux, its not a "derivative work" and binary modules are acceptable and don't have to be GPLed Again, the reality is that none of this (the existence of some products that exist as binary modules) harm the community. They offer choices for users, and the more choices the better. What a horrible place the world would be without TiVo (who never would have done the work if they couldn't protect it)
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