Re: Intent to package: device3dfx

[Ben Pfaff <pfaffben@msu.edu>]

Francesco Tapparo <cesco@goldnet.it> writes:

   On Tue, May 18, 1999 at 09:04:18PM +0100, Steve Haslam wrote:
   > device3dfx is a kernel module to allow user-space applications (quake
   > :}) access to 3Dfx cards without needing to be run as root.
   > 
   > This package consists *only* of a GPL'd kernel module. As such it can
   > IMHO go into main. It could be argued that you can only use it via the
   > Glide libraries, which aren't free at all, and it should therefore go
   > into contrib. This point may need discussion.

   This is the same problem of KDE: you cannot redistribute GPL code linked
   against non GPL code. This has 2 effect:

   1) this code is completely non-free (it's impossible to redistribute it)
   2) if you produce a package you are violating the copyright.

He said that the kernel module is GPL'd.  Thus, it can be linked into
the kernel without trouble.

   The upstream authore would can modify the license, but this is possible only
   if the upstream author did'nt use ANY kernel code.

Presumably the upstream authors accept Linus' decision that using
syscalls is not a form of linkage under the GPL; otherwise, this would
be true.  From COPYING in the Linux kernel tree:


       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".
     Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
     Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
     kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

			    Linus Torvalds

    ----------------------------------------
    [...full text of GNU GPL snipped...]

Do you see this issue differently?