[tulip] tulip on solaris

[Donald Becker]

On Wed, 21 Feb 2001, Dan Stromberg wrote:

> On Wed, Feb 21, 2001 at 09:18:41AM -0500, Donald Becker wrote:
> > > What am I missing here?
> > > Since sun released the Solaris source code...
> > 
> > They haven't released their source code under the GPL.  You can do what
> > you like with the *BSD drivers, but not with the Linux drivers.
> 
> I'm almost certain some non-GPL code has been released as a kernel
> module for the linux kernel by various card vendors.  One hears
> complaints about them not being updated from time to time.
> 
> Is there a reason why non-GPL code dynamically loaded into GPL code,
> is different from GPL code dynamically loaded into non-GPL code?

There is an explicit license exception for non-GPL drivers in the Linux
kernel, and those drivers have to be very carefully written to avoid
being legally derivative works.

The difference is that those non-GPL drivers were written, licensed and
released with the intention of being used with the Linux kernel.  The
Linux drivers are written and released with the intent (and license) of
being used only with GPL kernels.

If you disagree with the license, you are free to write your own
independently developed code.  Please recognize that the complaints
sound like "But doesn't _really_, _really_ wanting to use your code
without paying make violating the license OK?"

Donald Becker				becker@scyld.com
Scyld Computing Corporation		http://www.scyld.com
410 Severn Ave. Suite 210		Second Generation Beowulf Clusters
Annapolis MD 21403			410-990-9993