[OpenAFS-devel] keyring/pag support for linux

[Chaskiel M Grundman]

--On Tuesday, July 18, 2006 05:32:37 PM +0200 Harald Barth 
<haba@pdc.kth.se> wrote:

>> Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not
>> covered by this License; they are outside its scope.  The act of
>> running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program
>> is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the
>> Program (independent of having been made by running the Program).

The argument is that binary kernel modules are derived works of linux (at 
the very least, because there are all these inline functions in headers 
which appear in the object code) and therefore all their components must be 
GPLd.

> Linus has specifically said the opposite, naming OpenAFS in particular,
> many times, so at least on the merits of that objection he's going to
> lose.  Provided that Linus is consistent, and I would hope Linux would be.
Linus has also said that individual contributors of code are allowed to 
disagree with him wrt their new contributions. this is why we have 
EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL.

In the case of the RCU (read-copy-update) interface in particular, IBM has 
a patent on this technology, and has only granted royalty-free licenses to 
GPL applications. 
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=110522490820482&w=2> (I 
cannot find a "real" reference for this...)