Re: [BK PATCH] USB patches for 2.6.9-rc1

From: Greg KH
Date: Fri Aug 27 2004 - 13:44:16 EST


On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 11:30:04AM -0700, Craig Milo Rogers wrote:
> On 04.08.26, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> > On Thu, 26 Aug 2004, Craig Milo Rogers wrote:
> >
> > > On 04.08.26, Greg KH wrote:
> > > > Greg Kroah-Hartman:
> > > > o USB: rip out the whole pwc driver as the author wishes to have done
> > > > o USB: rip the pwc decompressor hooks out of the kernel, as they are a GPL violation
> > >
> > > The decompressor hooks may be a Linux kernel policy violation,
> > > but I challenge your contention that they are a GPL violation.
> >
> > Doesn't matter. Whether they are a GPL violation is a gray area. They were
> > removed because of a policy. The author then complained, and the _driver_
> > was removed for that reason.
> >
> > At no point was it a legal argument. In fact, since none of the people
> > involved were layers, you shouldn't even try to _make_ it a legal
> > arguments.
>
> Thank you, Linus, for making my point to Greg more clearly
> than I did. Saying that the pwc decompressor hooks were removed "as
> they are a GPL violation" is a difficult statement to support, and
> brings up unresolved legal issues -- exactly what I tried to say. I'm
> pleased you've clarified this issue for Greg and the rest of us.
>
> In concordance with Linus' policy statement above, Greg, could
> you change your patch attribution to say something like "per kernel
> policy", please? If for no other reason than to reduce dissention
> among future lkml archive delvers about why the pwc removal took
> place? :-)

Hm, I can't do that anymore, as Linus has accepted it into his tree
already. If he feels it's a big issue, he can edit it there.

thanks,

greg k-h
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