Slashdot Mirror
GPL Issues Surrounding Commercial Device Drivers?
Demiurg asks: "My company has recently decided to support Linux for it's embedded networking products which means that I'm starting to write Linux device drivers for our hardware. The company was very concerned about GPL issues and consulted a lawyer - who advised us to go for a user-space driver, saying that this is the only safe way to avoid GPL issues. I tried to give them a few examples of companies distributing binary only drivers (NVIDIA and Rational) but was told that these companies do not distribute binary only drivers - they only allow you to download them from a web site (which is not an option for an embedded product). What does Slashdot have to say about the issue? Is writing a user-mode (and hence not very efficient) driver the only way for a company to protect it's intellectual property? Please refrain from giving answers like 'all code should be GPL' - although I personally may agree, such answers will not help me convince management to make the change." Are there any lawyers (or readers with the right legal knowledge) out there that can confirm or contradict this recommendation?
Hmm, the poster must be right, he is being modded down to -1 Troll before the slashcrew can repost this story. Gotta stop those suppressive anti-GPL thoughts from getting out.
Fact is that RMS designed the GPL to be viral. If you go and talk to him you will discover pretty quickly that he lives on a completely different plane to other mortals. So when people argue that the GPL could not possibly be meant to mean anything as impractical as what it says then consider that the guy who wrote it lives in his office at MIT.
Lawyers can be a pain in the ass but I have yet to find one who read the GPL and said 'hey no problemo here'.
The only reason why the GPL works is that most people either don't read it, don't understand it or don't care. I suspect that Red Hat and VALinux fall in the latter category since the probabiliy of RMS appearing in court to sue someone over copyright is unlikely to say the least.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
The GPL may seem viral, but it is just a license agreement like any other.
The GPL doesn't just seem viral; it is viral. It is a license agreement like any other, but not a viral license agreement like any other, because most license agreements aren't viral.
Personally, I would consider a Microsoft EULA to be much more viral than the GPL.
Except that it's not. You can't just go around redefining other people's terminology just because you don't agree with the connotation. I am forced to use jargon like "free software" in a special way when talking to geeks. You need to get over it, and start using the same definition of "viral" as everyone else (in the software community).
I think his point was that you don't have to accept the terms of the GPL. Don't use the copyrighted work and you don't have to adhere to the license.
The OP said that copyright was viral and the GPL wasn't. So no, I don't think that was his point.
I'm ignoring your other (pro-GPL) comments because they are unrelated to the issue of whether the GPL is viral.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
The major difference is that if you include a copyrighted image/paragraph/etc in your original work (whether by permission or via fair use) the copyright on the cited work does not infect the remaining 90% of your original work.
ditto for the GPL. If you copy with permission other than the GPL, no problem.
Aha... so the GPL is not viral as long as you are not using the GPL.
The fact is, copyright is not inherently viral:
Some copyright-based licenses are viral.
The GPL is a viral license.
The GPL is enforceable under copyright.
But no combination of the above statements will prove the OP's contention, which is that copyright is viral (and the GPL is not).
The GPL gives rights; it does not take any away.
Another absurd statement, but I digress. "Rights" is such a loaded word; it makes laws sound like unalienable laws. Copyright gives certain "rights" to the author at the expense of the consumer. The GPL takes away some of those rights from the author and gives them to the consumer. There is always a conservation of rights. If society gives you the "right" not to be murdered, it impinges on my "right" to murder you. Our perception of which laws are "rights" is coloured by our nature and nurture; there are no absolute rights.
-a
How to rationalize theft.