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From: Richard A. B. <ric...@ho...> - 2002-08-23 10:51:19
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Stefan Reinauer" <st...@su...> To: "Richard Antony Burton" <ric...@ho...> Cc: "Andy Green" <an...@wa...>; <eth...@li...>; <Xbo...@li...> Sent: Friday, August 23, 2002 11:27 AM Subject: Re: [Xbox-linux] Question on supporting nVidia .o driver > * Richard Antony Burton <ric...@ho...> [020823 11:35]: > > "Some people feel that linking to the library dynamically avoids making the > > executable derived work of the library. A dynamically linked executable does > > not embed a copy of the library. Instead, it contains code for loading the > > library from the disk during run-time. However, the executable is still > > derived work. > > This would mean that > a) You're not allowed to boot Windows using Lilo > b) You're not allowed booting Windows CE using LinuxBIOS. Surely here the boot loader isn't making use of the code that it links too. I think it would be stretch of the imagination to say a bootloader is a derived work of the operating system (which ever it happens to be booting). Also what the user chooses to boot, is up to the user, and not then distributed in some form based on it. I think I'm right in saying you can do what you like with GPL software on your own PC, so long as you aren't intending distributing it. I guess the quote given doesn't actually exclude your example, but perhaps it is slightly out of context. > The border is pretty philosophical I guess. But still. As long as > the closed source blob would not call symbols from it's "loader", but > just gets parsed and executed, this is not a library. But we make use of it's functions. We load it so we can use networking, so isn't it acting as a library for us? > The missing > memcpy could be linked against the nv module (Thus creating a non-GPLed > memcpy function before to avoid license problems) > When the loader functionality is generic enough to only interact as > a intermediate boot API layer, "using" the nv object as data. Doesn't your additional loader layer then become governed (forcefully) by the GPL, leaving you back at the same point again. You can't just create a layer for all the GPL software, make that layer non-GPL and then do what you like through the layer. If you try, the layer has become GPL too, gaining you nothing. > It would be enough though to show the functionality of the link layer > by having one example where an open source driver uses this as well. > Whether this example actually works should not even matter as long as > it is there and shows the principles. There is no law telling that the > software I give out for free is forced to be fully operational You mean make your own GPL verison of vmnet.o (for distribution with xbox linux) that has the same interface, but doesn't do anything. Then if users choose to replace that with the real version it's out of your hands? I guess that might work, but it's deceptive and not in the spirit of the GPL. (Which I might add I'm not a fan of, so yeah, I like your plan!) Richard. |
