Rahul Sundaram wrote:


On the other hand, Linus was once widely quoted as saying that
loadable binary driver modules were not derivative works of the kernel
- and I believe that the initial popularity of depended on that
interpretation just as much as the wide use of glibc depends on it not
claiming programs that use it as derivatives. He has waffled on that
position more recently but there is no clear statement or legal
precedent.


You have made similar statements in the past while providing no
references every single time in the discussion even when asked. If you
truly believe in what you are saying, I would ask you (again) to provide
a direct quote. If he was so widely quoted on this as you claim, this
should be no problem at all. I very much doubt you will.


Does this direct quote from 1995 help your memory problem?

"Another way to look at this - using the legal rather than the
moral viewpoint - is to just see module loading as "use" of the
kernel, rather than as linking against it. I prefer to explain
the rationale behind it using the _moral_ reason to do it, though."

http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/d5af1cc0012c3bec

Hence his exception to the GPL permitting use of the kernel interfaces.
And if you read his statement there on why it is OK to have a non-GPL
AFS module, you might perhaps understand why I am perplexed that it is
not OK to have a non-GPL zfs module (ignoring the practical issues of
connecting the code for the moment).


There was also a magazine interview in that time frame with essentially
this same content, and I'm sure I also saw postings by Richard Stallman
and Eben Moglen that clearly indicated that they understood Linus'
postition on this point even though they disagreed with it being a good
idea. It's hard to search for things that far back but there must be
copies still around somewhere.


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Les Mikesell wrote:

Rahul Sundaram wrote:


On the other hand, Linus was once widely quoted as saying that
loadable binary driver modules were not derivative works of the
kernel - and I believe that the initial popularity of depended on
that interpretation just as much as the wide use of glibc depends on
it not claiming programs that use it as derivatives. He has waffled
on that position more recently but there is no clear statement or
legal precedent.


You have made similar statements in the past while providing no
references every single time in the discussion even when asked. If you
truly believe in what you are saying, I would ask you (again) to
provide a direct quote. If he was so widely quoted on this as you
claim, this should be no problem at all. I very much doubt you will.


Does this direct quote from 1995 help your memory problem?


Claiming that I have memory problems after you have been misstating the
case for a long time without any references is quite rich. The below
quote or mail nowhere has a blanket statement saying binary modules are
not derivative works as you claim. He has expressed his opinions quite
clearly in many many discussions. Here is a collection


http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/lk/COPYING-modules.txt
http://web.archive.org/web/20060202062935/people.redhat.com/arjanv/COPYING.modules

In short: It depends on the specific details. Note that Linus is only
one of the many copyright holders and other kernel developers intention
matters too and they clearly don't agree with binary modules at all.


http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/ols_2006_keynote.html



"Another way to look at this - using the legal rather than the
moral viewpoint - is to just see module loading as "use" of the
kernel, rather than as linking against it. I prefer to explain
the rationale behind it using the _moral_ reason to do it, though."

http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/d5af1cc0012c3bec

Hence his exception to the GPL permitting use of the kernel interfaces.


I have told you before that there is no such exception and I quote from
the first link:


"Well, there really is no exception. However, copyright law obviously
hinges on the definition of "derived work", and as such anything can
always be argued on that point"

And if you read his statement there on why it is OK to have a non-GPL
AFS module, you might perhaps understand why I am perplexed that it is
not OK to have a non-GPL zfs module (ignoring the practical issues of
connecting the code for the moment).


You were told about the problems earlier on too and you choose to ignore
it. CDDL was deliberately designed to be incompatible with GPL


http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/

ZFS has patents and nobody wants to take the risk

http://kerneltrap.org/node/8066

ZFS (if and when someone ports it to Linux) might still be able to live
a life like AFS does as a third party kernel module which would not get
merged in the upstream kernel. Meanwhile, I would be betting on btrfs (
http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page) to get mature and
merged in as a alternative with similar features.


Rahul

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ZFS was included in FreeBSD 7.0 because the BSD license is more free than the GPL with that regard.

> ZFS has patents and nobody wants to take the risk
>
> http://kerneltrap.org/node/8066
>
> ZFS (if and when someone ports it to Linux) might still be
> able to live
> a life like AFS does as a third party kernel module which
> would not get
> merged in the upstream kernel. Meanwhile, I would be
> betting on btrfs (
> http://btrfs.wiki.kernel.org/index.php/Main_Page) to get
> mature and
> merged in as a alternative with similar features.
> --

There are many pages where Linus is taken into account

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061215-8428.html

Also here is another page with related issues

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-6061491.html

Linus said that all of these things are in a "gray area"
<quote>
THAT is a gray area, and _that_ is the area where I personally believe
that some modules may be considered to not be derived works simply because
they weren't designed for Linux and don't depend on any special Linux
behaviour.
</quote>
http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0312.0/0670.html

On a somewhat related note to kernel.org,

will aufs be incorporated into the kernel?

http://lwn.net/Articles/283279/

and squashfs + lzma compression also

http://kerneltrap.org/Linux/Squashfs_Aiming_For_Mainline_Kernel

These things would help tremendously in the creation of livecd's and have other uses as well.

Regards,

Antonio




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Rahul Sundaram wrote:



Does this direct quote from 1995 help your memory problem?


Claiming that I have memory problems after you have been misstating the
case for a long time without any references is quite rich. The below
quote or mail nowhere has a blanket statement saying binary modules are
not derivative works as you claim.


I don't see how anyone can forget that he plainly wrote that demanding
that modules be GPL'd is both legally and morally wrong. Or have any
question about the meaning of this portion of the Linux license:


"NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use
kernel services by normal system calls - this is merely considered
normal use of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading
of "derived work".

in context with:

"... just see module loading as "use" of the
kernel, rather than as linking against it."

Maybe there's been a bait-and-switch ploy since then, but it was clearly
understood by the FSF legal counsel and everyone else at the time
although RMS argued the point (of course). See the top of page 16 here:
http://www.linuxdevices.com/files/misc/asay-paper.pdf (sorry, can't
find a nicer format).


Hence his exception to the GPL permitting use of the kernel interfaces.


I have told you before that there is no such exception and I quote from
the first link:


"Well, there really is no exception.


So his own quote, and the FSF legal counsel's understanding of the terms
as he stated them were both wrong?


You were told about the problems earlier on too and you choose to ignore
it. CDDL was deliberately designed to be incompatible with GPL


Deliberate? _Everything_ that is not the GPL is incompatible with the GPL.

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> You were told about the problems earlier on too and you
> choose to ignore
> it. CDDL was deliberately designed to be incompatible with
> GPL
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/198171/
>
> --

In looking at the article and the incompatibilities, I have found a chart on

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FSF_approved_software_licenses

Q: If MPL(Mozilla Public License) is incompatible with GPL, why is it distributed with many linux distributions some which call themselves GNU/Linux?

Q: Is this why Fedora not playing around with Firefox?

http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Fedora/2008-06/msg02165.html

http://fedoraproject.org/static/firefox/
http://fedoraproject.org/static/firefox/website-services-agreement.html

BTW,

I found a site which explains(fairly) about kernel modules and the GPL:

http://m.domaindlx.com/LinuxHelp/politics/kmodsGPL.htm

Pretty much it sumarizes that the modules that are not GPL are not illegal and there are many gray areas still present. There are many places also on the internet like the Tivo argument between Linus Torvalds and one of the authors of the GPL Alexandre Oliva. What is going to happen?

Regards,

Antonio




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On Tue, 2008-07-15 at 13:34 -0700, Gordon Messmer wrote:
> Les Mikesell wrote:
> >
> > A rare bit of honesty there:
> >
> > "In 2008, we found that GNU packages made up 15% of the “main�
> > repository of the gNewSense GNU/Linux distribution. Linux made
> > up 1.5%. So the same argument would apply even more strongly
> > to calling it “Linux�
>
> You're reading it incorrectly, by leaving out the question:
>
> GNU is a small fraction of the system nowadays, so why should we
> mention it?
>
> GNU is arguing, in the quote you posted, that if it is inappropriate to
> include GNU in the name for a GNU/Linux distribution, then it is even
> more strongly inappropriate to call it "Linux". Linux is a much smaller
> and less significant portion of a GNU/Linux distribution than GNU is.

Because everyone loves and admires Linus. You could take him home to Mom
and say "This is my friend, Linus." and she'd beam with approval. Take
RHS home to Mom for dinner.... it could get embarrassing. So, speaking
for myself, if I wanted to hold up a figure that is representative and
leader of my cherished OS, guess who I'd pick??

Besides, T.A.G. was about free software since 1980. (Thieves and
Assassins Guild) If it wasn't free, it was made free. <grins> Ric

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On Fri, 18 Jul 2008 21:04:49 -0700 (PDT)
Antonio Olivares <olivares14031@yahoo.com> wrote:

> ZFS was included in FreeBSD 7.0 because the BSD license is more free than the GPL with that regard.

And if NetApp win against Sun they can sue FreeBSD now, for triple
damages which would be millions and the end of FreeBSD.

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On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 11:39 PM, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell@gmail.com> wrote:
>> You were told about the problems earlier on too and you choose to ignore
>> it. CDDL was deliberately designed to be incompatible with GPL
>
> Deliberate? _Everything_ that is not the GPL is incompatible with the GPL.

For a list of dozens of examples showing this statement to be utterly wrong see

http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/index_html#GPLCompatibleLicenses

John

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On Sat, 2008-07-19 at 02:42 -0400, Ric Moore wrote:

> Besides, T.A.G. was about free software since 1980. (Thieves and
> Assassins Guild) If it wasn't free, it was made free. <grins> Ric
----
Arghhh - they've since moved to Sweden

Craig

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> > ZFS was included in FreeBSD 7.0 because the BSD
> license is more free than the GPL with that regard.
>
> And if NetApp win against Sun they can sue FreeBSD now, for
> triple
> damages which would be millions and the end of FreeBSD.

That is a big IF, maybe it should be an iff (IF and ONLY IF) like in Mathematics.

They(FreeBSD) should be protected, the users can get the ports from source, they do not ship binaries(except the installation *.tbz files).

Now, what is the probability that NetApp would win? Is it a sure event? or uncertain event? We should have no idea on this? Which court system? Is it in a U.S. based court?

In many ways when Fedora was created there were troubles, there was an existing Fedora Project already, and the thing got settled

http://www.fedora-commons.org/about/history.php

Regards,

Antonio




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