From: tzs@carson.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: What would people think of binary-only software on Linux? Date: 1 Mar 1993 06:15:55 GMT
bir7@leland.Stanford.EDU (Ross Biro) writes:
>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.
Your mistake is an implicit assumption that you can put me under a
license by using my software.
Assume I do the following:
1. Write a device driver in C for Linux. I use my own header
files rather than any Linux header files.
2. Compile this with Metaware C under DOS.
3. Run a program of my own that converts object files from
Metaware's format to Linux's format.
I'm not using any GPL'ed software, and so have not had to agree to GPL
for anything I've done.
Assume you do the following:
1. Obtain Linux.
2. Use it.
You have agreed to GPL and you are bound by it.
Now, I post the binary of my object file to the net. You grab it, and link
it into Linux.
*You* are still bound by GPL. *You* cannot distribute your resulting version
of Linux. If you do, and someone asks for source, and you can't give it
to them, it's you who will get sued[1], not me. The worst that will happen
to me, legally, is I might be called as a witness.
If the owners of the Linux copyrights wanted to prevent the above
scenerio, they would have to do something like claim a copyright
on the driver interface itself.
[1] OK, maybe they would sue me. You can sue anyone for anything, pretty
much. It wouldn't get to trial, though. It would be thrown out after
the first round of interrogatories.
--Tim Smith