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Linus Denounces NDISWrapper, Denies It GPL Status
eldavojohn writes "On message boards, Linus Torvalds was explaining why NDISWrapper is not eligible to be released under the GPL even though the project claims to be. Linus remarked, "Ndiswrapper itself is *not* compatible with the GPL. Trying to claim that ndiswrapper somehow itself is GPL'd even though it then loads modules that aren't is stupid and pointless. Clearly it just re-exports those GPLONLY functions to code that is *not* GPL'd." This all sprung up with someone restricted NDISWrapper's access to GPL-only symbols thereby breaking the utility. Linus merely replied that "If it loads non-GPL modules, it shouldn't be able to use GPLONLY symbols." As you may know, NDISWrapper implements Windows kernel API and then loads Windows binaries for a number of devices and runs them natively to avoid the cost and complication of emulation."
As long as there are no usable alternatives for many common chipsets, you won't win this one, Linus. People are then going to mod the kernel source so ndiswrapper appears kosher, and all you'll get is a +nd version for all major distributions, and fewer people using relatively clean source.
And as you may know, Linux loads NDISWrapper.
"Trying to claim that ndiswrapper somehow itself is GPL'd even though it then loads modules that aren't is stupid and pointless. If it loads non-GPL modules, it shouldn't be able to use GPLONLY symbols."
Someone explain how that is a different claim than the following:
Trying to claim that Linux somehow itself is GPL'd even though it then loads programs that aren't is stupid and pointless. If it loads non-GPL programs, it shouldn't be able to use GPLONLY symbols."
This is merely how Linus goes about discussion, do we really have to keep taking posts off of the LKML and blowing them all out of proportion?
Before people flame Linus for whining, or trying to sabotage Linux users' ability to run drivers that they need, look at how OpenBSD handled this matter. They too rejected ndiswrapper, and ended up putting their energy towards reverse engineering wireless drivers instead. The results were positive, and in some cases the Linux folks ended up picking up their code too.
And, when you write an open driver, you can maintain it more effectively. You can check it for security problems. You can fix its bugs. With ndiswrapper, you are putting a completely unknown blob of code inside your kernel and trusting it. This is never a good idea when other alternatives exist!
So, use ndiswrapper if you feel that you absolutely must... But it shouldn't receive any official endorsement that would cause most users to be dependent on it. Kernel developers shouldn't think of the wireless driver issue as a "resolved" one. The ideal situation is to reverse engineer a free driver.
As ridiculous as it may sound, it's theoretically possible for a Windows driver to be licensed under the GPL. Thus, no legal troubles when loaded by ndiswrapper :)
I'm sorry, Linus. But that argument makes no sense.
The GPL is a distribution license. NdisWrappers doesn't distribute any binary code that isn't licensed under the GPL, and the code is available. It's up to the end user to use their own binary drivers, and such use isn't covered under the GPLv2.
I see nothing that prohibits the distribution of NdisWrappers based on the GPLv2, regardless of what that code does when it executes on the users machine.
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So will GPL'd virtualization projects be similarly excluded? It seems to me they are the functional equivalent of NDISWrapper.
If ndiswrapper loads proprietary binary-only drivers and provides an API translation between Windows & Linux, then when ndiswrapper itself gets loaded as a kernel module, the kernel's "taint" flag should be set. The purpose of the taint flag is clear and it is quite applicable in this case. I don't think that Linus is saying the ndiswrapper authors cannot release their code under the GPL, what he's saying is that the run-time environment is not "pure GPL".
NDIS wrapper might itself be GPL but a kernel that uses it is not because the kernel is monolithic. Linus is actually giving everyone what they want.
What is this about GPLONLY symbols?.
Loading a non GPL kernel module makes the whole kernel non GPL and hard to debug because it's a monolithic program. Check out the Linuxant controversy of 2001.
Linus won't keep you from making and loading non free modules but he's not going to be responsible when changes break your module. If others would cooperate, this would not be an issue. The NDIS wrapper people will have to reimplement functions written by GPL strict coders. That kind of sucks for them but they can do it. If Linus were to piss off the GPL strict coders, NDIS wrapper still would not work because those coders would quit contributing. A project as large as the kernel demands give and take. GPLONLY was a nice compromise.
NDIS wrapper has never been a great idea. It puts you at the mercy of Microsoft bugs and malice all for the benefit of a $30 network card. The kind of card that needs NDIS wrapper is usually worst of class and should be shunned. It's brain dead much like a winmodem and the "firmware" game is intentional. The card maker wants to be Windows only so don't buy it. Sooner or later hardware vendors will have to come around.
I'm not even sure that linking statically creates a derivative work, as much as it creates a compilation. It's more similar to including a poem in a book of poems than it is to changing the poem itself. A derivative work involves changing or recasting the original -- static linking doesn't do this. The reason that you can't (w/o permission) distribute a program with an embedded library is more basic -- you're violating the distribution right of the library (and, presumably, the duplication right also.)
It's not a completely clear area of law. But, it seems wrong that using an interface exported by another piece of code (whether via a procedure call, a remote object invocation or just sending an appropriately formatted text message to a socket) creates a derivative work.
The only time GPLONLY is used is when submitting kernel crashes. Linus (and other developers) doesn't want to get backtraces for code that cannot be debugged, because it's in a Windows-only blob. You can still use ndiswrapper, just like you can use the Nvidia drivers -- the only caveat being that you cannot send a kernel hacker a dump.
The wheel is turning, but the hamster is dead.
Try the other way around. The NDISWrapper folks are trying to GPL something that Linus doesn't believe merits it. They're the ones trying to add the restrictions, and Linus isn't having it.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
Good thing desktop users are unlikely to install a new non-distro kernel between February 28th, when Linus posted that, and March 4th, when he looked more carefully at what ndiswrapper is doing and determined that it's not re-exporting functions to non-GPL code, but rather using them to implement an API that's not a derived work of the kernel. Linus saying something dumb on a Thursday afternoon which he corrects on a Tuesday shouldn't be news on Wednesday, especially as it's a discussion about a kernel that hasn't been released yet, won't be for a couple of weeks, and probably won't be provided by distributions for a couple of months.
...which doesn't change the fact that this Slashdot news item is poorly reported and inciting a massive flame fest,
/. - isn't having flame fests on poorly reported news the entire point ?
Er, this is
I don't think Linus ever had any doubts about whether Bitkeeper was proprietary or not. He simply stated that it was the best tool for the job.
Here, he claims "well, go ahead and use it, but don't call it GPL code because it isn't. Oh, and if you use it, I'm not responsible".
Hope your boss can now breath more easily.
"I think it would be a good idea!"
Gandhi, about Internet Security
What a pity the people involved in Open Source give my boss another reason to distrust the community and all their projects.
Yeh, too bad he got a start with the Microsoft people and all the honesty they bring to the table.
/sarcasm (included because you sound like someone who will miss it otherwise)
Infuriate left and right
Isn't it rather obvious? What happens if someone tries to GPL code that needs non-free libraries - or worse, contains code that has been copied or reverse engineered from another program without the author's consent, or that uses an incompatible license?
which is totally what she said
Agreed. This is precisely the reason why I regularly rail against the GPL as a license and think that all libraries should be under the LGPL. In effect, the kernel acts as a giant library. Any public interfaces to the kernel should be treated like a library and licensed appropriately, not under some idiotic license that doesn't allow linking non-GPLed code against it.
Indeed, this is doubly true for a plug-in API. There should not be restrictions for who can write code to a public specification, period. There are far too many people who say that the GPL should have this right and still decry Microsoft for their shady, intentionally non-GPL-compatible licenses. That is the height of hypocrisy.
More to the point, though, as long as something provides a public interface and uses only public interfaces, it is entirely the right of the author to decide how to license it, and if the author decides to license it under the GPL but provide a linking exception to allow closed source drivers to call it, that is the author's right. Linus himself said that he felt binary-only drivers should be allowed, so he took advantage of the right to provide a linking exception, and yet now he wants to deny it to others? What's wrong with this picture?
Heck, it wouldn't even be wrong in my book if it directly exported GPLONLY symbols as-is. The purpose of the GPL was supposed to be that non-open source can't directly call into GPLed code to avoid compatibility problems if the open source code changed. Since this code is providing a layer of indirection, if the kernel changes, it can become a compatibility shim. As such, even a direct export indirection layer would be in the true spirit of the GPL, IMHO. But this isn't even doing that. This is providing a translation layer from one API to another. This is providing an emulation of an entirely different API and uses GPLed symbols to do so. That is absolutely in the spirit of the GPL, as the whole thing is already a translation layer. This doesn't allow the closed source driver developers access to GPLONLY symbols. It's not a workaround to dodge the GPL. It's an enabling tool that makes the overall Linux user experience better, and if someone's interpretation of the GPL causes such a tool to be effectively banned, then it is the GPL that needs to be changed, not the tool.
IMHO, the GPL is a BAD license precisely because it causes fights like this to break out with regularity. Instead of providing the best service we can to the users of open source software (and thus promoting the power of open source over closed, proprietary solutions), we, the open source/free software community, end up fighting amongst ourselves over how to interpret a license written by Stallman out of spite for closed software vendors. Instead of supporting free software against proprietary solutions, we end up causing people to think of us as a bunch of loons who are dogmatic about an ideal no matter how much it hurts the users. That's not a good way to encourage adoption by anything but the most zealous free software extremists, and most of those folks already use Linux, so basically it isn't a good way to encourage adoption, period..
Remember, every time the GPL is used to impede progress, proprietary software wins.
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As I understand it, the issue is not whether ndiswrapper is GPL or not, but whether it can use GPLONLY symbols or not. It is not the same thing. And that is not a Linus decision, it is the decision of the developers that marked their code as GPLONLY to begin with. GPLONLY code is code that is to be used only by modules released under a GPL compatible licenses. GPLONLY requires GPL but it is not implied by GPL, so you may well have GPL modules without GPLONLY requirement. Whether symbols are flagged as GPLONLY is a decision of the developer. Some developers might not have contributed any code at all otherwise. Quite clearly here you have non-GPL code (the proprietary drivers) using GPLONLY code via a passthrough (ndiswrapper). The fact that the passthrough is GPL does not change a thing. You are violating the will of the GPLONLY module developers. Hence the situation has to be addressed one way or the other. Linus simply noted that ndiswrapper has to respect the will of the developers whose code is used, i.e. either they talk to them and get a permission to use their code or they rewrite the GPLONLY code.
http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/docs/lkml/#s1-19
> IMHO, the GPL is a BAD license precisely because it causes fights like this to break out with regularity.
I don't necessarily think it's a bad license, I just don't think it's a one-size-fits-all thing. When you bring together a group of intelligent, opinionated, and (in large part) socially awkward people, fights are going to break out. Now it's true that things like religion and licenses tend to act as amplifiers (thus why I don't buy the classic "people will kill each other anyway" argument about religion) but I think this is just a pretty isolated case of Linus having another tirade. Reportedly he's already backing off.
Done with slashdot, done with nerds, getting a life.
This would be different if it were purely their code, but it isn't. This isn't stand-alone code. What they created is a derivative work of the Linux kernel. They used code which they didn't write and they don't own. Your argument is that the people who actually wrote the original kernel code have no right to say how it and its derivative works are used. Legally, you are completely and totally wrong. Essentially, you are advocating an end to copyrights on computer code. That's fine, but it has nothing to do with the GPL.
The problem is that it is not "their code". They claim that the "project implements Windows kernel API and NDIS (Network Driver Interface Specification) API within Linux kernel." That means it is a derivative work of the kernel. That means that they don't own all the code themselves, and that they have to follow the license of the other code they are using. And Linus's interpretation of the GPL and kernel modules is a lot more permissive than what is probably legally correct.
I've said it before and I'll keep on saying it: ndiswrapper is evil. The biggest obstacle right now to greater Linux usage, IMO, is the lack of wireless chipset drivers. ndiswrapper is a crutch, not a solution. Intel may have provided enough datasheets to enable writing wireless drivers for their chipsets, but Broadcomm is the 800 lb. gorilla in the room.
"Dude, just like load it with ndiswrapper and move on with working wifi!"
That attitude, I maintin, is actually harmful in the long run.
As you point out "it is entirely the right of the author to decide how to license it" and "Linus himself said that he felt binary-only drivers should be allowed, so he took advantage of the right to provide a linking exception". That "linking" exception requires that a module properly declare whether its license is GPL or not. If not, then its access to the kernel is restricted; if it is, it is given access to most all the symbols - the GPLONLY symbols. This is for (a) compatibility, but also (b) stability. They didn't want binary drivers breaking the kernel.
From the sounds of it, they don't agree with the NDISWrapper guys (or whoever is complaining) that NDISWrapper deserves the ability to access the GPLONLY symbols. Perhaps the way NDISWrapper functions is breaks compatibility with the GPL - by loading non-GPL code . I don't know the whole story, but I think I would have to side with the Linux guys on this one. It's their "linking" exception, and you have to play by the rules.
Note: This is not a GPL issue with respect to the Linux kernel; if it's a GPL issue at all, it is with NDISWrapper not validly being able to use the GPL, and if that is the case, then they should not be allowed to access the GPLONLY symbols. The primary issue is a matter of playing by the rules the developers set - and that goes for GPL and non-GPL code alike, regardless of projects, commercialization, etc. (And no, I'm not claiming, implying, or otherwise stating the the Linux Kernel guys determine that for everyone. Look at the project authors and who has the right, the ability, to make such a rule. It'll change for every project.)
Truth is like the sun. You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't goin' away. - Elvis Presley (source: imdb.com)
With out it, many of us would be screwed for drivers.
Who really cares if its bla bla bla compliant?
---- Booth was a patriot ----
The problem with this approach is it lowers the amount of bug reporting you are getting simply for pedantic reasons.
It's not pedantic. It's avoiding a variable that could waste people's time. If the problem isn't the binary blob, remove it and recreate the bug. Problem solved. If you can only reproduce the bug when the blob is loaded... hmm... sounds like it's the blob.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
What Linus himself *has* said in the past was that he considers binary modules ok *if* those modules weren't developed specifically for Linux. Take nvidia as an example: they have a binary driver core (possibly developed for Windows, possibly developed just as a generic driver core) which has an open-source shim to adapt it to the Linux kernel's specific interfaces. NDISWrapper could be thought of similarly, as an open-source shim to adapt Windows drivers to Linux's specific interfaces. However, this doesn't mean that NDISWrapper itself can be licensed under the GPL (of course, it can be licensed under "GPL with linking exception"), which is not compatible with Linux's GPLONLY symbols. Heck, it wouldn't even be wrong in my book if it directly exported GPLONLY symbols as-is. Sorry, but your book isn't relevant here. (I assume by "it" you mean NDISWrapper.) You don't own the copyright on the kernel, so you don't get to decide. While this stuff may not be tested in court, seems like the copyright holders are in the right here. The purpose of the GPL was supposed to be that non-open source can't directly call into GPLed code to avoid compatibility problems if the open source code changed. No, the purpose of the GPL is to allow anyone to freely modify and redistribute source code, but to require that the source code remain open. The GPL is about idealism (with a bit of pragmatism mixed in); it has nothing to do with "compatibility problems." It's not a workaround to dodge the GPL. Oh, I agree, it's not. NDISWrapper is a great (temporary!) tool to fill a void until manufacturers get their act together or people have the time and motivation to reverse-engineer the relevant chipsets. Can it be licensed under the GPL? No, it can't. It does things anathema to the GPL's purpose (linking to code with an incompatible license). Can it be licensed under the "GPL with linking exception"? Sure. Is "GPL with linking exception" compatible with the Linux kernel's license for a derived work? No, it's not.
You're at the mercy of the copyright holders and the courts as to whether or not you're allowed to use NDISWrapper with Linux (and you are, it just can't use GPLONLY symbols!). Deal with it, or find some supported hardware or a different OS. Remember, every time the GPL is used to impede progress, proprietary software wins. You're implying that there's some sort of competition going on here. Your personal agenda for open source might be to rule the world, but that's not everyone's. And some people who do share your agenda would like to "win" without cutting corners and compromising on their ideals. Is that naive? Maybe. But just because you don't understand other people's motivations, it doesn't make them wrong.
Xfce: Lighter than some, heavier than others. Just right.
NDISWrapper is not a derived work of the Linux kernel. That is a gross misuse of the term "derived work". Using headers and linking against something does not make it a derived work. That was, IMHO, decided way back in the early 80s with Galoob v Nintendo, though no GPL linking case has gone far enough in court to test this, AFAIK.
You are correct that I can't take someone else's code and add a linking exception, but that's not what is being done here by any stretch of the imagination, and there are numerous cases where open source wrappers have been written as a border between proprietary and GPLed code. Again, to my knowledge, no cases about this have ever made it to court, in part because arguments that such linking is a GPL violation are relatively precarious, and in part because most companies that have found themselves getting threatened with a lawsuit have been small enough that they choose to settle out of court rather than risk a lengthy and expensive court battle.
More to the point, you can argue that the GPLONLY limitations were intended to disallow linking by code that is licensed as GPL with a linking exception, but then you would also have to disallow any code within the Linux kernel itself that calls those functions unless those pieces of code are also marked with the GPLONLY restriction. That makes the GPLONLY functions substantially less useful to the point of being nearly worthless.
NDISWrapper is a module that loads binaries specifically developed for Windows, so there you go.
Funny, I saw Stallman give a speech, and he basically said that he started hating proprietary software specifically when a printer failed to work with a new computer setup. Had the driver been open, he could have fixed it. Had the OS been open, he could have fixed it to be compatible. Neither was, so he couldn't. While the goals of the GPL may have drifted from that original purpose these days, compatibility was a very important part of the reason the Free Software movement was created in the first place, and I think it is important that the movement not lose touch with its roots.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Microsoft is saying "here are some specifications for a document format, and here is a vague 'promise'. You might be able to use these specifications, but if you do, we might sue you, but we won't tell you how we'll actually decide that, or what parts of the specification we think we could sue you over."
Linus is saying "here is an API for kernel modules, and here is the GNU GPL. You can use the whole specification if you place your code under a GPL-compatible license; otherwise you can use this, this, and this, but you cannot use this, this, or this. If that's not clear, ask us and we'll tell you whether we agree with what you're planning to do."
Can you see the difference? Because if you can't, then I suggest you take a deep breath, step back, suppress your dislike of the GPL for a moment, and think about it. You don't have to agree that Linus is being reasonable. All I'm asking is that you recognise that what Microsoft is doing is not the same as what Linus is doing, and therefore that people who approve of either activity but disapprove of the other are not being hypocrites.
(Lest you dismiss me as a mindless GPL fanboy, let me point out that when I've released software I've always made a point of choosing LGPL or MIT-style licenses for libraries, and in this instance I'm not at all convinced Linus is right. I just think the rhetoric needs toning down a bit. I'm sure you can argue against Linus' ideas without having to fling around blanket accusations of hypocrisy.)
People on this forum are not understanding what is being discussed. There are two issues -- licensing and Kernel tainting, and these actually are separate issues. Licensing: GPL only covers derived works. Making code that interfaces from a GPL'd software to a binary that is a windows derivative IS legal. Linus specifically made this point in his posts, and several times. Tainting: Tainting has two purposes... First, it tells the Kernel that a module is suspect. If someone reports a Kernel bug on a Tainted Kernel, then the Kernel maintainers have no visibility into the binary that may or may not causing an issue. Kernel maintainers then require removal of whatever is causing the tainting as a first step in tracking down a bug. The second purpose of tainting is to indicate to the outside world that if they used certain calls in a module, that that module would definitely indicate that it was a "derived work." Currently NDISWrapper taints the Kernel by itself if it loads a proprietary driver. All agree that this tainting is necessary -- especially for the first purpose. Linus wanted to know which symbols that NDISWrapper was using so that he could find out if those symbols really needed to be GPL_ONLY symbols. Additionally, there seemed to be some confusion if NDISWrapper was simply acting as a pass-thru vehicle for avoidance of the GPL -- and we found through the posts, and through the lists of exports, that it clearly was not. There was also discussion on if the exports could be removed from NDISWrapper or the exports could be made non-GPL_ONLY -- presumably, so that it didn't /have/ to do the funky chicken with tainting, or to make more people happy & reduce the chance of NDISWrapper being bullied again...
IMHO, the GPL is a BAD license precisely because it causes fights like this to break out with regularity.
The thing to understand is that as soon as a GNU/Nut starts talking about "the spirit of the GPL", they are basically admitting that the GPL doesn't actually say what they want it to, and they're going into some zone of extra-legal fantasyland. The GPL is a legal license, nothing more, and it has no spirit
Linus understands full well that there's nothing in the GPL which permits developers to add special "GPLONLY" symbols based on their personal feelings. From a legal standpoint, either the linking is legal or it ain't; the flag has nothing to do with it. Nor does the GPLONLY flag do anything to actually enforce the GPL or prevent vendors from shipping NDIS-enabled distros -- its simply used for support issues among the kernel devs (as is their right).
So, its not really that the GPL is a bad license in itself, but the culture that has developed around it where everyone feels like they can play Pretend Lawyer and dictate "the spirit of the GPL" in whatever manner is available to them. This culture is pretty much directly the result of Richard Stallman playing a guru or moses figure where he inscrutably makes proclamations about "linking" and so on and has filtered down through Debian and the Linux Kernel and most other projects were people are too scared to piss off the ideologues doing the work. If the Free Software community were run by competent lawyers and not messiah complex figures, they wouldn't have any of these problems.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Thank God the kernel is GPL. I can go in there and remove all this stupid GPLONLY garbage.
I think that it's a horribly misunderstood license. While the concepts themselves are easy to understand, when you get into the nitty gritty details of interoperating with other software, things get sticky really quickly.
BSD is so much easier, but you run the risk of someone doing more with your code (and getting paid for it) than you did, without getting anything out of it. Personally, that doesn't bother me all that much.
I think almost all of these types of problems come down to the fact that, for copyright law with respect to computer software, the most *sane* approach is that linking does not create a derivative work, and therefor license terms cannot be applied to other works which link to the licensed work. NOTE: I am not a lawyer, this is not a statement of fact regarding current law, this is a statement of personal opinion. In otherwords, my opinion is that, if my view of copyright were adopted, there would be no GPL, only the LGPL. That is to say, since the only difference between the GPL and LGPL is the linking clause, and since I do not believe copyright should extend to other linked works, the GPL 'decays' to become the same thing as the LGPL.
Let me state it this way: It is my understanding that copyright law, currently, has no notion of 'linking'. Copyright covers copying material, or creating derivative works (such as translations, modified versions, etc). I don't know the full definition of derived work (I've tried to research it before, and it appears to get a bit complicated), but it is my understanding that the basic principle of a derived work is that it contains all or part of the work from which it is derived. For example, a translation is a derived work because, while all the words may be literally different, being in a different language, the works still essentially contains all the ideas and expressions from the original work.
It's also my understanding that copyright does not govern what you can and cannot do with with copyrighted work, except to the extent that you cannot copy, distribute, or perform for other people, the copyrighted work or distribute derivatives without permission (I think you can create derivatives without permission, even, you just can't distribute/copy/perform that derivative). So, copyright doesn't give me the power to say you can't 'link' your work with mine, unless such 'linking' creates a derivative and you then subsequently distribute/copy/perform that derivative work (so even if a derivative is created on the on the end-user computer, which I believe is not the case, I don't think copyright law would prohibit that).
The thing about software which dynamically links other software is, the two software works are fundamentally almost completely separate works, if I understand dynamic linking correctly. They are distributed separately (or at least, *can be* distributed separately), they are loaded into memory separately, and the works are never really combined, even in computer memory, I believe. Is that not correct? My understanding of 'dynamic linking' is that the computer is running code in one segment of memory, and encounters an instructions which just causes it to jump to another part of memory and start executing what's there, and when finished executing the linked function, to return to the original memory location + 1. If that is, in fact, the case, then it's rather like a note in a book which says, "Go read such-and-such magazine article, then return to this page and continue reading". Even if my book makes *no sense* unless you read the article I put the note in for, my book is still not a derivative, because it contains no copy of the magazine article. (I mention that last part because I've read where Linus, and some other people, make the claim that the test for derivative work should be whether software can run without the linked software - I personally think that is an irrelevant fact, because where there is no copying, there can be no violation of copyright).
Anyhow, I just ultimately believe that all this stuff about restricting what symbols can and can't be used by non-GPL software is just a mess, and not reasonable. I think the idea that because one work links another work, that the author of the linked work gets some kind of control over the second work is not reasonable. Separate works should have separate copyrights which do not touch each other AT ALL.
Now, it's my understanding that all this linking stuff vis-a-vis the GPL has never