[3274] in linux-net channel archive
Re: Bug in 1.2.13 firewall?
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Alan Cox)
Mon Jun 17 22:10:27 1996
From: alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk (Alan Cox)
To: roque@di.fc.ul.pt (Pedro Roque Marques)
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 1996 20:56:48 +0100 (BST)
Cc: dennis@etinc.com, linux-net@vger.rutgers.edu
In-Reply-To: <199606171827.TAA14055@oberon.di.fc.ul.pt> from "Pedro Roque Marques" at Jun 17, 96 07:27:24 pm
> >>>>> "Dennis" == Dennis <dennis@etinc.com> writes:
> Dennis> A better idea is an object library that gets linked with
> Dennis> the minimal source driver. Userland solutions are not
>
> That would be an acceptable solution. Your proprietary software which we
> can consider to be some sort of firmware living in the main board
> would be safe and Linux users would have a driver for all their
> kernels.
>
> My question is: does the GPL allow this ?
If its a modular driver consisting of code written by ETinc and no GPL'd code
then the GPL has nothing to do with what is entirely ET inc's property. Linus
has stated that much.
Similarly if you have a driver with downloadable firmware, that firmware
containing no GPL'd code there is no reason to believe that firmware is GPL'd
since its in no way linked with the Linux code. In fact its probably a file
supplied with a program that downloads it via an ioctl() in the driver.
Alan
