RE: Using GPL'd Linux drivers with non-GPL, binary-only kernel

[David Schwartz]

> If you build a kernel to run Linux drivers that seems to scream
> derivative work to me.

	Then WINE is a derivative work of Windows. Then any product designed to use
AA batteries is a derivative work of the AA battery design.

	If you want to say that if you design X to be compatible with Y, then X is
a derivative work of Y, you can do it. But that's not the kind of world I
want to live in.

	It's not the world the GPL talks about:

The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based
on the Program"
means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is
to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or
with modifications and/or translated into another language.

	You would pretty much have to argue that these were derivative works not of
the kernel or of Windows itself, but of the APIs. In other words, Windows is
a derivative work of the Windows API, as is WINE. Linux is a derivative work
of the Linux kernel API, as is any module that uses this API.

	The only problem with this argument is that it results in the type of world
you don't want to live in. You are not suppose to be able to use copyright
to prohibit compatability.

	DS