81–90 of 202 posts
I can't think of a single reason that binary-only kernel modules would ever need to be distributed. There are some cases when out-of-tree modules make sense, but in all of these cases, they could be distributed with source code, in compliance with the GPL.
> It is rather ironic that in some ways, one has more freedom in how one licences a kernel driver for Windows than the freedom one supposedly has in writing a kernel module for Linux. it is not ironic at all: freedom in Free Software is the freedom of USERS of the software to be able to see and modify the source. This is a freedom granted by the writers of the software, and copyleft means that this right is ensured t…
Being allowed to choose a license that denies freedom to others isn't freedom, just like being allowed to own slaves wasn't freedom.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Users are unable to distribute You're talking about distributors.
Going with the GPL, a user can be a distributor too and are ofte encouraged to distribute libre software.
> Actually, it gets worse. Here's what the GPLv2 says about termination: > So if you violate the licence, it is terminated. That's it. Given that “you” may refer to a corporation, this creates the following disturbing possibility: This is called the GPL death penalty, has actually happen in the past even before the article was written. It is yet another thing fixed by the oft-maligned GPLv3. Samba switched to GPLv3 b…
Now I'm curious. Who or what company was hit by the GPL "death penalty"?
https://stockfishchess.org/blog/2021/our-lawsuit-against-che...
Previous discussion:
Is there any legal significance to "clean-room" reverse-engineering? I hear this term a lot from engineers who seem to think that they're entitled to claim ownership over distinct works created by people who read their source code (and in extreme cases their documentation or even disassembled binaries), but that's not how any other form of intellectual property works.
I rather use Mozilla Public License 2.0, Eclipse Public License 2.0, or EUPL 1.2 for copyleft purposes. Strong copyleft as a concept has no legal reality. Linking a program to another don't produce a derivative work. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/eupl/news/why-viral-l... FSF is full of baloney about how static or dynamic linking is different than communicating for example through sockets. To be able to use t…
> Actually, it gets worse. Here's what the GPLv2 says about termination: > So if you violate the licence, it is terminated. That's it. Given that “you” may refer to a corporation, this creates the following disturbing possibility: This is called the GPL death penalty, has actually happen in the past even before the article was written. It is yet another thing fixed by the oft-maligned GPLv3. Samba switched to GPLv3 b…
Now I'm curious. Who or what company was hit by the GPL "death penalty"?
Is there any legal significance to "clean-room" reverse-engineering? I hear this term a lot from engineers who seem to think that they're entitled to claim ownership over distinct works created by people who read their source code (and in extreme cases their documentation or even disassembled binaries), but that's not how any other form of intellectual property works.
This is the difference between patents and copyright.
A mechanism that is patented can not be implemented by anyone. It doesn't matter if they did or did not read your source, they cannot implement it. It doesn't even matter if they knew the patent existed or that even that it had been done before.
Copyright is a lot more forgiving. It only covers the exact implementation. Doing a clean room implemation means you will write different code that does the exact or very similar thing.
> It is rather ironic that in some ways, one has more freedom in how one licences a kernel driver for Windows than the freedom one supposedly has in writing a kernel module for Linux. it is not ironic at all: freedom in Free Software is the freedom of USERS of the software to be able to see and modify the source. This is a freedom granted by the writers of the software, and copyleft means that this right is ensured t…
> the GPL and like licenses are the most permissive licenses This is a deliberately confusing statement. It's fine to prefer the GPL over MIT/BSD-style licenses, but the term "permissive" is well-understood in reference to non-copyleft licenses. Misapplying that term just muddles the issue unnecessarily. See also: [the wikipedia page on permissive licenses]( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permissive_software_license )…
You are saying that from the perspective of developers, taking open source software and not permitting users to see the source is... permissive. It's like the right to put people in jail is extra freedom, because you get the freedom to do that! I can't believe that's not in the bill of rights! I find that to be confusing.
I did not create the confusion that surrounds licensing, I'm trying to clarify it.