Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

From: Arjan van de Ven
Date: Thu Feb 15 2007 - 03:13:40 EST


On Thu, 2007-02-15 at 00:04 -0800, v j wrote:
> On 2/14/07, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> > On Wed, 2007-02-14 at 21:16 -0800, v j wrote:
> > > This is in reference to the following thread:
> > >
> > > http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/12/14/63
> > >
> > > I am not sure if this is ever addressed in LKML, but linux is _very_
> > > popular in the embedded space. We (an embedded vendor) chose Linux 3
> > > years back because of its lack of royalty model, robustness and
> > > availability of infinite number of open-source tools.
> >
> >
> > I think you have a bit of a misunderstanding... Linux is not royalty
> > free. Just the royalty is not in the form of cash, but in the form of
> > having to give your improvements back to the open source world.
>
> Sure. But this is not legally binding.

that's a legal conclusion that is ... iffy at least. I'm not a lawyer,
but I suggest you talk to a real one before making that conclusion, and
you'll see it's not as simple as that.

--
if you want to mail me at work (you don't), use arjan (at) linux.intel.com
Test the interaction between Linux and your BIOS via http://www.linuxfirmwarekit.org

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