Re: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers

From: Alexandre Oliva
Date: Thu Feb 15 2007 - 23:14:06 EST


On Feb 15, 2007, "v j" <vj.linux@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> On 2/14/07, Arjan van de Ven <arjan@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>> 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.

It's not giving back, it's giving forward. Improvements don't have to
go back, but whoever receives them must receive them under the same
license.

> Sure. But this is not legally binding.

Indeed, you don't have to give it back or give it forward. It's just
that, if you don't comply with the license, you don't have permission
to distribute the software at all.

--
Alexandre Oliva http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
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