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Linus Denounces NDISWrapper, Denies It GPL Status

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the he-has-spoken dept.

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."

4 of 457 comments (clear)

  1. Linus making friends fast by ruiner13 · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Trying to claim that ndiswrapper somehow itself is GPL'd even though it then loads modules that aren't is stupid and pointless Gee, Linus, tell us how you really feel...
    --

    today is spelling optional day.

  2. In other news by iamacat · · Score: 0, Redundant

    Linux kernel is denied GPL status because it just re-exports GPLONLY symbols to thousands of non-GPL applications such as Steam games, VMware, Opera, Apache*, Perl...

    * Open Source != GPL

  3. Re:I'd have to disagree with his logic by Too+Much+Noise · · Score: 1, Redundant

    His point (if you read the thread) is that loading ndiswrapper by itself might be fine as far as GPL is concerned, but the moment you load a binary windows driver in ndiswrapper the combination is no longer GPL and should mark the kernel as tainted. Since this is the very purpose of ndiswrapper, the fact that the wrapper sans driver is GPL is not very relevant. Yes, there might be an anomaly of GPL windows drivers - but then you'd have the source code to port it to Linux, making it a very short-lived anomaly.

    The way I see it, this impacts crashes. Tainted kernels are harder to debug for crashes due to closed-source binary blobs. Ndiswrapper+windriver has said blobs, hence it would make sense to mark the kernel as tainted (as in maintainers of GPLONLY symbols not too willing to debug a crash when a binary-only blob uses them). But I'm not a kernel dev so feel free to educate me if my understanding is wrong.

  4. Re:Try understanding the issue. by Burz · · Score: 0, Redundant

    The card maker wants to be Windows only so don't buy it. Sooner or later hardware vendors will have to come around. Vendors and users will just stick with Windows if the Linux developers do not make it easy to find compatible items when they are hardware shopping. MS are tyrannical, but the Linux devs are indifferent (or perhaps setting up a site with simple hardware search form is beyond their technical ability?).

    Make users choose between tyranny and indifference, and they'll probably just stay right where they already are.