From: bir7@leland.Stanford.EDU (Ross Biro) Subject: Re: What would people think of binary-only software on Linux? Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1993 18:35:32 GMT
For those in gnu.misc.discuss: The question is weather or not it is ok
to distribute proprietary .o files to be linked into the Linux kernel
(a GPL covered work.) I am arguing that it is not.
In article <1mqu7cINNlgi@senator-bedfellow.MIT.EDU> jfc@athena.mit.edu (John F Carr) writes:
>In article <1993Feb28.164606.12123@leland.Stanford.EDU>
> bir7@leland.Stanford.EDU (Ross Biro) writes:
>
>> The GPL has never been tested in a court of law, so legally it
>>is an unknown. I do know the intent of the GPL is to include object
>>modules whose primary purpose is to be linked into a GPL'ed package.
>
>Authors of GPL software can claim that intent, and I'm sure RMS would
>appreciate it if people acted that way, but there is no way that my
>software, not derived from other copyrighted source, can be held to the
>terms of the GPL, the legal authority of which derives from copyright.
Here is the relavent sections of the GPL
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based
on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of
this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the
entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest
your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to
exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or
collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program
with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of
a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under
the scope of this License.
...
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it,
under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of
Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable
source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections
1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three
years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your
cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete
machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be
distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium
customarily used for software interchange; or,
c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer
to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is
allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you
received the program in object code or executable form with such
an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
...
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program
except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License.
However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under
this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such
parties remain in full compliance.
....
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent
infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues),
conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or
otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not
excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot
distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this
License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you
may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by
all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then
the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to
refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
End of GPL quotes
So it looks as if distributing proprietary .o files is acceptable.
However linking them in (being a form of copying) is questionable at
best. I would say that since it makes a copy of GPL covered code
which cannot be redistributed is a violation of the GPL under section
3, and hence makes the .o distributions worthless.
As for the Linux kernel, I may change the licensing agreement on
all modules which I've contributed to explicitly disallow linking to
proprietary modules. This would not affect modules that have been
distributed in the past, but it probably would affect ones in the
future.
Ross Biro bir7@leland.stanford.edu
Member League for Programming Freedom (LPF)
mail lpf@uunet.uu.net to protect your Freedom