Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 19:03:41 -0500 From: dennis <dennis@etinc.com> To: Terry Lambert <terry@lambert.org> Cc: terry@lambert.org, bmcgover@cisco.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Porting device drivers... Message-ID: <3.0.32.19970306190339.00b4b6b0@etinc.com>
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>Further, to do what you suggest "get it under another license" would >require the consent of all the authors. If author A wrote the driver, >then author B tweaked it, then the tweaked driver is a derivative work >of A's work, and A has no rights to the licensed version above the >rights he granted in the original GPL'ing of the driver. Now push the >code through several more authors, and you are faced with a daunting >task. > > >If we stick with the prima facia intent, that the purpose was to keep >the driver free, and not the implied intent, to infect all code that >uses it with GPL and to punish all non-GPL distributors who want to use >it for their non-GPL distribution, then... the LGPL would accomplish the >same thing for the driver. I was proposing that the original driver that was submitted could be "licensed" by the author, or ported by the author without any GPL issue... > >If in fact the prima facia intent was the actual intent, the LGPL would >yield significant advantage: commercial vendors who wanted to use the >driver would contribute commercial engineering hours toward improving >the code, and everyone would win: the commercial users would get a >driver for a significantly reduced effort, the Stallmanites would >maintain the freedom of the code itself, and the GPL contributors >other than the commercial vendors would gain professional engineering >hours working on solving problems that were not fun to solve (and would >probably never be solved by volunteer effort alone, as a result). > >At one time, I tried to get the Linux camp to LGPL a couple of their >drivers for use by USL. That would have allowed UnixWare to use the >drivers, and it would have given some of the drivers the benefit of >people working on them who had been working on UNIX kernel code for >30 years. Both sides would have won, in the long run, since this >highly valuable engineering effort would have had to have been >released under LGPL. I even had USL senior management signed off on >it; the torpedo came from the Linux camp. 8-(. Bunch of communists...they'd rather have mediocre "Free" stuff than "better" commercial stuff. Thats why they're bound to mediocrity..... They all want our bandwidth manager, but many are using 'BSD to get it because we cant do it for linux without providing source, which would be suicide for the product. > > >The LKM philosophy allows you to do something unique: comply with the >terms of the GPL, while not promoting distribution. This is not in >line with the spirit of the GPL, but the driver author can't sue you >over the spirit of the thing. If he had a different intent, after >all, he would have used a different (or at least slight modified) >license, where the spirit was better reflected in the letter than it >currently is in the GPL (or LGPL). It's not like there haven't >been people (like me) screaming about this loophole since day one. This is BS if you ask me. An operating system provides services by definition, and to somehow imply that adding services to an OS by accessing provided services modifies the OS is bogus. Unfortunately you'll not find a judge or jury that understands it well enough to make a realistic decision on it :( Dennis
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