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GPL violation of the Linux kernel? 261

Posted by CmdrTaco from the does-it-bother-you? dept.
Miguel de Icaza writes "The people that did the MOSIX cluster system have now made a port for Linux. But they do not provide all the source code of their work. They only provide a binary kernel module which allows the user to run only a cluster of six machines(they show a picture of their 100 cluster node). The binary module requires kernel modifications. (Thus breaking the Linus permission for binary modules). I think we should stand up against this blatant violation of the GPL. " Update: 02/27 11:34 by S : In related news, xose points out other license violations: Linux Network Drivers states "Several drivers have been distributed that are little more than renamed versions of my drivers. Some have my name, the copyright notice or the Gnu GPL license notice removed. The less flagrant violations merely fail to note that the driver has been modified from the original version. (The GPL requires such a note.)"
Update: 02/27 11:05 by S : To clarify Miguel's point: Source must be available for any addition to a GPL'd product. Linus and the other core kernel developers gave a special dispensation to allow binary modules to be inserted into the kernel as long as they do not require kernel modifications of their own.

Some posters argue that this is whining, and we should be grateful for more software on Linux. Others argue Linux must let go of its licensing conditions to succeed. Neither argument is relevant. MOSIX is violating the Linux license: it is a binary kernel module that requires kernel modifications. Just as Microsoft would not tolerate violations of its license, the authors of Linux need not tolerate this violation. The fact Linux is available at no cost is irrelevant: the license is based on copyright law and Linux is not in the public domain.

Other posters believe that Mosix could fork the Linux code base and do what they want. This is incorrect. The license terms are determined by all the authors (copyright holders) of a product. Unless Linus and co agreed to change the license it would not change, fork or no fork.

If it is true that the Israeli government does not allow the source of the Mosix kernel module to be made available, it is my understanding that the GPL states that the Hebrew University may NOT distribute Mosix to anyone.
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GPL violation of the Linux kernel? More

GPL violation of the Linux kernel?

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  • Consider: the module does require kernel changes. These are, if I'm not mistaken, provided in source form (otherwise how would prople path the kernel?) That doesn't violate the GPL.

    Now, there is no clause in the Linux license which says that all Linux software must be GPL'd. Look at Perl, KDE, and the current version of Netscape (not Mozilla) for examples of non-GPL Linux software. So as long as they don't use code in their app from the Linux kernel, including code from their modifications to it, I think this one might just be legal.

    Note: Since the kernel has to be modified, I have my doubts that the module didn't use the same code, so it would be violating the GPL in that case. Anyone know about this?
  • Posted by Tony Smolar:

    Sounds funny coming from someone who has an email address which is provided by one of the worst examples of Capitalism, Hotmail.

    All I can say is, if you don't like it here, you are free to move to a country that matches your ideals, there are plenty of us who do not want a Socialist system.
  • The reason that the socialism didn't work was because it was made by dictators, and not by the PEOPLE.
    the only success of the capitalism is to make a society where there are from one side people who are starving and in the other side people who are as rich as bill gates.
  • It did work, in chile, during the early 70's, a socialist presidence was elected in democratic elections.
    The U.S. however, helped his opposition, led by General finushe to take over the country.that finushe btw, killed over 30,000 from chile, and of course the U.S. didn't do anything about it.
  • what in gods name are you saying.........

    benjamin
  • the capitalist system is not the enemy. copyright is the enemy. in fact these two positions have the same foundation: personal freedom & non-intiation of force. see ipnot [ipnot.org].
    __
  • Microsoft has violated it. Most of their network code is BSD and GNU based. Check out any good hacker site.
    Various important signatures associated w/M$ shit support me here.
  • According to their pages:

    "Note: in the future we plan to provide MOSIX for a larger number of processors to approved educational and
    research institutions, subject to signing of a non-disclosure agreement."

    Doesn't seem they're like willing to share the source...
    /El Niño
  • Keep your fucking Nazi rhetoric off of Slashdot, you son of a bitch. Wanna say it to my face? Come and get me you racist pig. You'll find a hell of a lot more than you bargained for.

    Fnkmaster
    gabriel@fas.harvard.edu
  • Now thats quality reading. Right on! :)
  • Browsing through /usr/src/linux, it appears Torvalds owns most of the code. A quick telephone call *should* be enough to get them to release the kernel sources. If they've released binaries, have at them—they have absolutely no copyright ``protection''.
  • No, I don't want everybody to be the same.I just want
    everybody to have the same ability for the same life quality.
  • Not In My Back Yard.


    Sorry, no source, no install on *my* kernel.
    If not strictly for security reasons.



    --
  • We can all thank Mr Stallman for the explosive growth of cooperative sw development made sustainable by the GNU General Public License.

    I predict that this cooperative model will spread to other industries. In the very long term the GPL could be a significant contribution to the advancement cultural evolution.

    Thank god for the atheists!

  • Not at all. All it means is that the many authors of Linux have made an offer that Ericsson isn't inclined to accept. That's their choice. Linus et. al. put a lot of hard work into Linux, and as their payment, they want any modifications to it made available in leiu of money.

  • 1. This is totally bull****. There is no violation of the GPL here since source changes are provided. There is no case of anything against MOSIX.

    2. If this kind of thing ever happens for real with the GPL, think about it: would this be happening if you were using a different license?
  • Posted by Tony Smolar:

    Keep the current version proprietary, and release older versions under a free software license. (doesn't have to be GPL).

    I think Ghostscript does something similar to this
  • Posted by Tony Smolar:

    One thing I'd like to point out first of all is that the ideals behind the GPL say that your code does not belong to you.

    Anyway I have a related question...

    The GPL I imagine is written to exist within the frame of US copyright law. What about other coutries that have weaker copyright laws? If someone from one of those countries violate the GPL, what can be done to stop it? It seems like not much. Ironically, the FSF seems to want weaker or no copyright laws.
  • Posted by Tony Smolar:

    It's not always a matter of not wanting to, there are many times when code can't be shared because of NDAs or patents and other things.
  • The web page says that only the binary modules is proprietary, the modifications to the kernel are under GPL. So as long as binary modules are allowed, this should be legal.
  • Ooops... I hope the blank comment I just submitted by accident got caught before it made it out...

    What I was trying to say, was that if this *is* a violation of the GPL, and we let it slide because it's non-commercial, that just makes it easier for future commercial violations to take place, as a precednet will have been set. Not only that, but what if the people behind this decide to make it commercial in the future? Surely it's easier to make everything comply with the GPL from the outset, and not have to try to impose modifications at a later date, when someone notices that it's become necessary...
  • it's a "positive" racism, but it's still a racism.
  • Living in a northern european country that has had mostly socialist governments after the war (not a
    east block country) I feel I know something about socialism in real life (not theoretical stuff, we don't
    listen to marketing people when we select our SW and HW, so we don't mind what socialism
    theoretically should/could have been)

    1. Had linux/OSS been socialistic in its nature we would have _had_ to contribute a percentage of
    our coding/consulting/sysadmin/work to linux/OSS. We would have had no choice how much, and
    we would not have been able to decide what part of linux/OSS we would contribute to.

    2. What path linux/OSS development should follow would have been decided by a small group of
    leaders. Quite possibly directly or indirecty chosen by democracy, but still a small group.

    3. The leaders would have a large group of bureaucrats to control the
    coders/sysadmins/consultants. This group would be as big and probably bigger than the
    "coders/sysadmins/consultants" group. This group would have a complete pencil pushing fetish
    and be almost infinitely ineffective. This group would answer to now one except maybe parts of the
    leader group (particularly not to the user and "coders/sysadmins/consultants" group).


    It is obvious that this is not how the linux/OSS community work. Instead we have complete freedom
    to decide how much we contribute, and to what projects.

    If we don't like the way something is done we can fork the code and do it some new way. If we don't
    like how a project is handled we can crate a competing project or fork a new project.

    Linux/OSS is freedom, socialism is not.
  • "The original version of MOSIX, called MOS, was compatible with UNIX Version 7. It was developed in 1982 for a cluster of PDP-11 computers..." [quote from MOSIX paper by Barak and Wheeler in the Winter 1989 USENIX proceedings]

    MOSIX also ran on VAX, NS32K, and M68K UNIX systems along the way.
  • This link suggests the MO6 module is covered by an NDA, tbut he kernel hooks and user applications are all under GPL.

    http://www.mosix.cs.huji.ac.il/txt_mo6.html

    Someone who reads legalese would have to decide wether this is within the rules though.

  • WOW! (Score:1)

    by jelle ( 14827 )
    Look at what page? -> It's heavily slashdotted right now...

    The host is reachable, port 80 connects, but the httpd does not respond. Looks like the system is trashing.


  • As far as I know, the GPL is a legal document, and as far as I understand it, legal documents are part of the real world. If money were the only driving force and the only valid argument, we wouldn't be seeing the DoJ nailing M$ ass. Ideals are part of the real world, for better or worse. It was idealism what brough many (if not all) of the modern economic systems and theories of today, socialism, syndicalism, communism, even modern regulated capitalism. Ideals are not just euphemistic ideas of people being jolly and jumping in never ending fields of flowers singing "colors, colors, look at the colors." The pursue of legality, common welfare, protection of private property, the enforcement of the right of the needed and the right to make money are also ideals.

    Ideals are what regulate the crude reality few try (or do) impose on most of us. The ideal of private property, the ideal of doing business while following acceptable business practices is something sherished by any ambitious and yet honest enteprenour. Ambition and honesty can go hand to hand. I've seen it. Claiming that ideals are not part of the real world demonstrate a good understanding of the real world itself, whatever real world means.

  • Is not collective bargaining simply an employee utilizing all the resources at his disposal (his fellow employees) to get him the best deal for his time? I think so.

  • An interesting question. Since it's a violation of license terms, a lawysuit would clearly be in order. But who owns Linux? Is it public domain? If so, then the company could perhaps be sued in that context. Maybe the GNU foundation should step up to the plate? If Mr. Stallman wants to keep his peace-love-and-software vision a potential reality, he and his organization should make certain that, if no one else pursues this matter, they do.

    Maybe a class-action lawsuit? My knowledge of law isn't what I'd like it to be, but that may fit the bill, since Linux is kinda de-centralized in some ways. Either way, I agree that this should be dealt with and stopped. If a "rule" is place with no enforcement of violators, the rule becomes meaningless.
  • FSF is against information ownership,
    I can't speak for the FSF, but I don't believe that they oppose information ownership. Rather, they strongly support the rights of the owner, which include the right to make the information publicly available under terms that prohibit others from restricting it.

    Richard Stallman certainly tries to encourage people to release GPL'd software, because that benefits society. But supporting Free Software and opposing ownership are not the same concept.

  • Posted by Tony Smolar:

    You can charge for your development costs, as much as you want.

    But you are right, the people you give your product and/or source code can give it away for free.

    This IMHO is a major problem with the GPL
  • .....How? :)

  • We think we're a democracy, but we're not. We're a republic. It doesn't matter how much we chant that we're democratic, we're not. We are a republic.

    Chanting over and over that the soviet union was socialist doesn't make that true.

  • The real question here is: Who the real party in interest? IOW, who owns Linux such that [it] would be injured by GPL violation. In this case, it's Linus (if it's kernel stuff violated). If it's GNU stuff violated, it's GNU. As much as we like to think of linux as owned by everone, in a legal sense the only person who can sue is someone who has a traditional ownership interest. Since Linux has the final say, he's the owner (in the courts' eyes). For the community ownership theory to fly, linus would have to vest his interest in linux 'to all the world' or something like that. In addition, whatever part of the the linux kernel that was violated could be traced to the author. The author (who had his or her code entered into the kernel) has a copyright on that code, and can sue for GPL violation too. Thus, Linus and whoever wrote the specific code that was used to violate the GPL are the real parties in interest. The real parties in interest are the only ones suffering legal damages.
    I'm sure Linus, at least, will take action.
  • The FSF is against information ownership,..., they don't seem to oppose capitalism in other areas...

    You are right, of course, about the FSF. My comments were aimed more toward those Slashdot posters who take the OSS phenomenon as a validation of Socialism in general (and who really do mean free as in free lunch).

    As to the FSF, I can't agree with their goal of ending information ownership. Like you, I think they are trying to live a contradiction. In fact, I consider that part of their philosophy to be dangerous. Note that, while they want to to remove my IP rights, the reason that I choose not to violate the GPL, whether it's legally enforced or not, is out of respect for their IP rights.

    Despite my differences with the FSF, I continue to support Linux and other OSS projects. It makes sense for the operating system to be open, and it's an excellent free-market solution to the threat of a Microsoft monopoly (and it's fun, and you meet nice people). As another poster pointed out (smithdog, below), cooperation has always gone hand-in-hand with Capitalism. There is no reason why free individuals, working toward a common goal, can't share the fruits of their labor, while still respecting each other's, and everyone else's, property rights.
  • In case you didn't notice, money is as virtual as software.
  • The 40-hour work week is a joke. I live in Missouri (USA) and have no idea what the law is elsewhere, but an employer here can hand you as much overtime as he wants. Your options are to work the overtime or quit. There is nothing in Missouri law (or US law) that says anything like "Employees don't have to work more than 40 hours if they don't want to." If you have a 40-hour work week, great. I'm glad for everyone who does. But it is NOT guaranteed to you unless you are lucky enough to have a contract.
  • We need to set up a GNU GPL legal defence fund. We need to find about 10,000 companies/individuals to contribute $100. It is doable - look at the amateur radio (ARRL) for an example. Sorry, but inside the US that is the way to do things.

  • Wouldn't the fact that the MOSIX group, part of the Computer Science System Group [huji.ac.il] of Hebrew University's Computer Science Institute, is located in Givat Ram, Jerusalem, Israel make it quite a bit more difficult to file a lawsuit? Regardless of the difficulties of the whole question of "who's responsibility it is", there is also the whole international <pause> thing.

  • As most of us already know, the origins of capitalism are in the cooperative pooling of money to fund overseas voyages. These voyages were both extremely profitable and extremely risky. By cooperating and selling shares in a venture, the proto-capitalist were able to distribute the risks and increase their individual chances of remaining solvent. Since one bad voyage (ship not return) was expensive enough to break the bank of any single player, this distributed risk system quickly weeded out the less cooperative competition.

    As was pointed out in several other posts here:

    Yes, American 21st century society is a complex addaptive system. A pragmatic mix of capitalism, socialism, puratanism with just a pinch of egalatarianism. What separate our society from most others is the emphasis that our constitution places on _liberty_. IMHO the Free Software Foundation is correct in pointing out the value that freedom has is worth far more than some short term security.

    Too often we are told of the failure of Socialism. Much of this has to do with the break-up of the Soviet Union. The fatal flaw in this reasoning is that we would not want to judge the validity of capitalism by how well our eastern european friends do under our system. So it is silly to judge socialism by how well the same people did by (their attempt at) that system.


    Stay tuned for the exciting final act where "the expropriators are expropriated."

    Cheers
  • Beowulf supercomputer stuff is out there already. If any random bad guy wants to grab a copy, he just has to fire up FTP.

  • I agree (Score:1)

    by doomy ( 7461 )


    What you see here is a racist-US-centric-halfwit posting by a bunch of Wannabe-cyberpunk-nerds who get off counting the number of hits on their pathatic web site.


    Get a life, do some research before posting this kind of crap.


    OTOH,

    I dont see any violation of the GPL here.

    --
  • I know of no "day job" for him. And some people would say that "selling out" came with Red Hat and Caldera. The real purists use Debian or maybe Slackware.

    I use Red Hat, so I suppose I've sold out in some people's eyes.
    --Lenny
  • The GPL is a legal document. It has nothing to do with ideals, it has to do with the law. If someone places any restrictions on the distribution of a patch to the linux kernel they can be taken to court and they will lose. This has already been proven with NeXT's objective-C compiler. They took the gcc source, modified it to be an objective-C compiler then refused to release the source code to it. The FSF took them to court and won.
  • I was just poking around the 2.2.2 source tree and couldn't find any reference binary only modules at all. Does anyone know exactly where these terms are written out?
  • How come then that ericsson's new multi-million-dollar project the 'e-box' runs linux in an embedded system?
  • If the GPL is not defended in the face of a clear violation of its terms, it will be deemed worthless by those willing to violate it, and everything that's been built up on the 'strength' of the GPL (ie. its legal deterrence against theft of code) will come tumbling down like a house of cards. I'm sure Microsof~1 is watching this closely...
  • Patents are the way to beat the GPL.
    GPL makes me release my source because
    I link to GPL'd libs. No problem. You
    can't use my source code, because I've
    got the patents and using it without a
    license is a patent violation. You
    can see how I did it by taking apart the
    product or by looking at my patent or
    by reading my GPL code, but you can't
    use it. Sorry

    I think it's pretty obvious you're not sorry and that you're also a thief. You had to work "a way around" the GPL libraries in order to steal the work of all the other programmers who built the libraries. Nobody forced you to link to GPL'ed libraries. If you were an honest man, you would have refused to indulge in the trickery you brag about.

    Oh well. I guess if people steal your code, you're only getting what you deserve -- and not one bit more. Turn about's fair play, isn't it?

    mp
    michael@trollope.org
  • Actually the last time this happened it was due to confusion with a new webmaster at the company. The company had every intention of releasing the source, they also were providing a pre-compiled kernel for convienece. The new webmaster aparently assumed that only the kernel binary was to be released. The matter was quickly cleared up. Also, beta has 100% nothing to do with it. IIRC under the GPL you can protect the source to a program only if you give it to NO ONE else.
  • it's nice to see that someone did their homework.
  • Thank you so much for supporting my post. Obviously, if this passage were taken literally, it would refer only to the building of the temple. Taken figuratively, however, it could be read as encouraging those who have been freely given intelligence by God to freely give of the products of that intelligence when participating in any great communal work.

    My teacher, Shimon Ba'al HaNotzah Shel Emet, a contemporary kabbalist, has the following commentary:

    Bezaleel is spelled: Beth - Tzaddi - Lamed - Aleph - Lamed (2+90+30+1+30 = 153).

    153 is also the value of the phrase: LHTIB LTVBIM '(in order) to bring well-being to the good'

    Aholiab is spelled: Aleph - Heh - Lamed - Yod - Aleph - Beth (1+5+30+10+1+2 = 49).

    49 is also the value of the word: LIDH 'a bringing forth, birth, nativity' or 'a delivering, a freeing'

    Thus Aholiab and Bezaleel refer to 'a bringing forth or freeing of something to be used for the common good'.

    Just amazing, I think. My teacher also suggested that there is a hidden relation between the words Moses and Mosix, but being but a poor student, I can't for the life of me figure out how Mosix is spelled in Hebrew.


  • No no no! 'Atopia' is the land where everyone has eczema and asthma!
  • I don't know if the FSF can sue if they don't own any of the kernel code, it seems likely that at some point atleast some FSF code snuck into the kernel over the years however, but I'm certain they could handle all of the legal fees and take care of the lawyers 'n' such. They did this with NeXT's objectiv-c compiler.

    I think the issue of if this violates the GPL is still in question though. IIRC the GPL expressly forbids linking a binary module to a GPL'd program, but Linus made an exception to the kernel for binary modules. But I think that exception only holds if no kernel modifications are necisary. The modules come with some kernel "patches" so I really have no idea. I'm sure RMS would love the chance to sue these people though.
  • The popular understanding of Capitalism has become so corrupted, it's hard to discuss it intelligently anymore. This was largely done on purpose (which is not to say there is a conscious plan involved) by the major segments of society whose power and money would be threatened by true Capitalism, including Politicians, University Professors, Union Leaders, Bankers, and Big (so-called) Businessmen. Despite what you have heard, Capitalism is not about international money-changing, nor can it be characterized by pointing to the problems created by the huge government-regulated, government-controlled stock market and public corporations.

    Capitalism is about private ownership of Capital. The central point is the private ownership, which is closely linked to freedom. This means that each person is entitled to (i.e. owns) the results of his own work (unless he sells it or trades it for pay), and the definition of ownership is that you get to say what can or cannot be done with your property.

    The GPL is a license setting down the wishes of the creators of GNU and other OSS software. We expect those wishes to be honored. We even expect the courts to enforce the license. This implies that the creators have a legal right to set the rules for their creation. That, in turn, implies ownership (even is the ownership is subsequently transferred to the public), which is a Capitalist concept, whether some OSS-ers think so or not.

    Under Socialism, there is no ownership. Everything is shared by society, for the good of the people (or the state). Of course, there still needs to be rules to manage the sharing, otherwise, what's to stop me and my guests from using up the entire world's supply of Truffles and Dom Perignon. Thus, whenever Socialism is implemented, it breaks down into Ownership of Everything by the Government.

    Under Socialism, the GPL would be ignored, since it only represents the wishes of a few private individuals. Under Socialism, the Government could decide that it was in the best interest of society that some companies (say those located in Redmond) be allowed to provide custom versions, and binaries only, and there would be nothing you could say about it. Socialism would destroy the GPL and the OSS community.

    If you really want a better understanding of Capitalism, read Milton Friedman's Free To Choose. It's insightful, entertaining, and written for the general public. For the more philosophically inclined, I would also suggest Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal (though I risk re-igniting a recent flame war - some here think Rand is full of crap, but I'm definitely not one of them).

    To summarize: If you support the GPL, then you must support Capitalism, because that's the only system under which the GPL could exist.
  • Socialism does NOT work. Look at all the failings of socialism. If you look at the "successes" of socialism, you will find that it is blended with capitalism.
  • No, this is not "Normality" nor "Real World" as I saw some ppl say : This is a THREAT. Seems like some guys are thinking GPL is some kind of joke, but no, GPL is the new way sofware goes, it's now a real component of the "Real World" as they say...
    Free the code, that's the way things must go.
    Would you be so happy to have a 2Mb monolithic kernel compiled for i386 ? I don't thonk so.
    DON'T let the kernel be a proprietary thing. And I know "they" won't. Seems like those cluster-guys are going onto troubles...
  • Posted by Tony Smolar:

    The GPL attempts to blatantly impose the ideals of the FSF on anyone who writes software that tries to co-exist with it.
  • I don't believe a judge is ever going to buy the "linux is owned by 1000 copyright holders" argument. I think he/she is more inclined to rule that linux is owned by no copyright holders.
    Why do you thing a judge would decide that? Do you think that a judge would deliberately ignore the clear evidence of ownership present in the source files and documentation, and would ignore Linus's statements about ownership? Who do you think that the judge would claim to be the author, and why?

    In my limited experience with the judicial system, the courts appear to accept claims of ownership at face value unless there is hard evidence to the contrary.

  • "Ideals" often involve mapping the "real world" with your perceived notion of how it should work.

    So yes, they are a part of the world, though they tend to be less grandiose than in past.

    There is no shortage of ideology today - BUT - there is an argument that while ideology has been important in past with regards to building social systems (capitalism, socialism, etc.), our social system TODAY is so complex that it's not going to be changing based on the ideal of one person.. it will evolve based on the collective actions of everyone in it... kinda like a complex adaptive system.

    Free software works because software itself is a young field and wasn't so complex that there was no room for ideology. However - there's a risk that people following the ideology (the GNU manifesto) are ignoring the changes and complexities around them in the capitalist software world...i.e. we're living in very pluralistic times: "total world domination" is unrealistic.

    Actually, it's kind of funny that the "world domination" slogan was very tongue-in-cheek at first, but slowly people kept drinking the Kool-Aid and actually *believed* they could do it, all without understanding a thing about the origins of capitalism, competitiveness, and competitive advantage (which is the typical reason for proprietary software).

    The DOJ nailing Microsoft's ass is not due to ideals: it's due to money - MS competitor's money being wasted because of Microsoft's monopoly hold. Most don't view the DOJ trial as a religious war and Microsoft as this evil-empire.

    This is what Microsoft is: They're a successful company with some severe ethical problems. They're also intensely competition-focused (vs. customer focused which is their new turnaround strategy) because of Billy G's incesent drive to WIN.

    So far, in this world's social systems, ideals HAVE been the major way things are "created" in terms of law & social structure. Going forward, your observation that ideals "regulate" the cruel reality imposed on us is actually a symptom of a larger trend that I alluded to eariler: the world is becoming so complex that ideals are becoming more focused, less grand. In essence, we're seeing incongruities in our grand-reality, and filling those holes up.

    So yeah, I do sort of agree that ideals "regulate" the world.

    I think the social world is layers-upon-layers of ideals that have grown over time. And you know what? The world isn't really that cruel, (though it is unfair) if you take time to understand our social systems' origins and why they exist today (captialism and market-driven economy, for instance).

    ....And wouldn't it be bad if the world WERE fair and everything bad that happened to us happened because we deserved it? :)
  • Funny you mention that. I believe that Marx coined socialism as (roughly) a system where the workers "own the means of production".

    IF that's true, the U.S. is the most socialist country out there. 50%+ of the stock market is owned by pension plans & mutual funds.

    Please, please, PLEASE buy a clue before you post such ignorant drivel.

    Money is not evil - its an inanimate object - people can be evil.

  • Free speech, not free beer. You can charge anything you want for GPL code. I would think that would work especially well in an embedded system, after all, what good is the code with nothing to run it on? Besides, most buyers of an embedded system want support and warantees, which you are free to sell. The only thing you can't do is charge an additional fee for the source, or restrict the redistribution of the software.

    To take the example of a cellphone, you can sell the phone w/ software, and offer the source to any buyer who wants it. They can freely give the source to me. Of course, what good is the OS for a proprietary cellphone without the phone?

  • I did, and guess what? It comes with the source to the kernel modifications and to the user controll tools. Binary modules are 100% allowed. There is no violation of the GPL here. People really should research first, before they get all worked up.
  • I'm just going by what I read somewhere. It's entirely possible what I read was wrong. Anyone know the real answer?
  • After actually looking at the sources it seems as though they are _not_ violating the GPL.

    The MO6 distribution comes with a few scripts, a man page, a tar of user programs (user.tar) and the kernel stuff (kernel.tar).

    The user programs contain a bunch of files and it seems as though they are all covered by either the GPL or LGPL.

    The kernel stuff contains a few binary files (which I assume are the modules) and a whole bunch of source files. All files bearing the "The Hebrew University of Jerusalem" copyright are clearly labeled as GPL. The rest of the files appear to be modified files from the kernel distribution and it seems as though no copyright info has been changed in any of them. Taking a few samples show that the kernel files from MO6 bear the same copyright info as the corresponding files in linux-2.2.0-pre7 (which I happened to have on my hard drive).

    I have not looked at every line of every file in the MO6 distribution, but it does seem as though they are well aware of the GPL and the linux kernel and therefore I assume that MO6 is OK.
  • The last time we had a report of a GPL/open source code 'violation' it turned up, pretty much to be crying wolf - it was beta code. If you look at the web site, it says
    • MOSIX for Linux 2.2.2 is powering our 100 node scalable cluster. A 6 processor version, called MO6 is available for
    • Beta testing.

    (Italics mine)
    Let's not have another witch hunt, unless they deserve it, okay? I wouldn't count myself as being able to give a good answer on the subject. btw, this is a university - though I'm not sure if this is a commercial operation or not. (doesn't appear to be commercial though)
  • And Bezaleel and Aholiab shall work with everyone wise of heart to whom Adonai has given wisdom and intelligence, to know how to do every work of the service of the holy place, concerning all which Adonai had commanded.

    And Moses called to Bezaleel, and to Aholiab, and to everyone wise of heart, to whom Adonai had given a heart of wisdom, everyone whose heart had lifted him up to come near the work, to do it.

    And they took every offering before Moses which the sons of Israel had brought for the work of the service in the holy place, to do it. And they brought him still more willing offerings morning by morning.

    --Exodus, Chapter 36, verses 1-3.

    And the Lord Adonai saith, "Let my Source go Free". And the wise of heart considered, and willingly gave freely unto the Lord.

    --Linux, Kernel 2.2.2, Module MO6.
  • If you feel that way, how about you move off to the USSR. . .wait, Socialism failed there.

    Okay, move off to Utopia, that was a wonderful place with nothing resembling capitalism, wait, Utopia is Latin for "No Place", do you think St.Thomas More was saying something???
  • To be fair, it was Sun who started this nonsense on PC filesystems with PCNFS. Of course that MS couldn't write a real filesystem to beginwith... Someone at Sun is probably cackling with delight at how MS is sticking with a hack used by a product abandoned eons ago.
  • Have a closer look at the GPL.

    b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in
    whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any
    part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third
    parties under the terms of this License.


    This explictly denies what you suggest is possible.

    It would, if you hacked the GPL off at that point instead of continuing down 4 more paragraphs:


    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.


    How this applies is quite simple; the stub is a derivitive work. The driver is a program that interfaces with, but does not derive from, the stub.

    If you think that "interfacing with" is the same as "derived from", then Wordperfect would have to be covered by GPL because it interfaces with X.

    For that matter, any application that interfaced with the kernel's filesystem drivers by writing a file to the disk would be considered "derived from" the kernel.
  • If you write a program that is proprietary, then write a small stub for the kernel that communicates with it, all you need do to meet the GPL requirements is release source for your stub.

    The GPL can't prevent that.

    Get over it, people. The GPL is not an iron-clad guarantee that every program that in any way remotely touches Linux will be completely open.

    These same misconceptions come up on at least one topic on /. every single *DAY*. Don't you people read the replies to the articles?
  • Counter an ill-conceived joke. With such a comment?

    He didn't seem to have any intent to injure. If he did, then I would say, at the very least he should apologize, for that intent to injure. In the end it was just a joke, in bad taste I will admit, but only a joke. You're offended, you have the right be. However, personally I find your response to be even more offensive, but, I ask no apology. My personal sensibilities, are no fault of yours. And likewise if my words should offend you, I find that to be your problem to deal with, not mine.

    What I DO ask, is next time, try hitting the preview button first.. look at what you've said, then look at what you are saying it about. Does it REALLY deserve this ? Or maybe, even a better worded, well thought out response would be in order. And actually would accomplish much more, to show him where he was wrong. Just because he neglected to think before typing, doesn't mean you should do the same.
  • Another thing being overlooked is, if you don't distribute your changes outside of your company, you never have to let anyone else see the source, since you're NOT, repeat NOT releasing it to the public.

    Now, if you're SELLING the embedded systems, you gotta distribute the changes to GPLed programs, but the stuff you write yourself, as long as it doesn't derive from the source of any GPLed program, can stay closed source...

    I think it's about as non-restrictive as it gets without being public domain.
  • I think they have done themselves in. I've been browsing the source tree, and find that the module headers themselves are GPLed. Doesn't this mean that ALL the source code must be GPL, since their module must use their own headers?
  • if that's the world, then let us change it.
  • Posted by AnnoyingMouseCoward:

    I also have related question that bears on your posting.

    What about computer games? Me and a bunch of my friends would like to write a "Zork" style D&D game.

    As far as I can see, under the GPL, we wouldn't have to distribute the source ( we wouldn't want to - that would lead to a lot of competition and kill any potential profits for us ).

    This is the kind of situation where you have to make your money from a binary, since you can't make any money from supporting a distributed source program ( since the user base would be too small ).

    I know that Linus Torvalds has stated that this kind of thing is ok ( as long as we don't modify any of the Kernel or utility code ).

    Still, while it follows the letter of the GPL, it seems to be somewhat at odds with the spirit of the GPL. Can anyone suggest a solution?
  • IANAL, but I would say that any and every contributor to the Linux kernel would have a valid complaint since he is including all of their code in a propriotary form.
    --
  • This might have been discussed in the past, but alas I do not know. For the sake of argument, say
    a company or an individual is actually violating the GPL. Who enforces it? Where does the money come from for legal expenses? What if a company
    the size and strength of say Microsoft was outright violating the GPL? Repeated attempts to get them within the rules of the license fails. Exactally who sends them to court? Who pays the expenses, and if damages are occured, who gets awarded the money? Certainly if said GPL code was mine, I could not afford to fight them in court. And if the code is more generic like the Kernel which has been modified, what happens then? So the real crux of the question is whether the GPL is actually enforcable or not. Whats the procedure?




  • > A capitalist by definition is not one who exchanges goods for other
    > goods using money, but one who exchanges money for more money using
    > goods.

    Oh, yeah? I think *you* need to read some Marx.
  • No shit. All of which supports my point.

    Instead of just reading the GPL, why don't you read the thread to which you're replying, too?

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