On Thu, 14 Sep 2006 11:15:57 +0200, Siegbert Baude wrote:
The purpose of the GPL is to get modified code back, which is the real interpretation of "derived work".
It doesn't have to be modified, simple use of GPLed code is enough. If the glibc where under GPL instead of LGPL, *every* program linked against it would have to be open sourced. But vendors don't even follow the LGPL, or have you seen any vendor of a closed source program/library offer the object files for relinking with a newer version of glibc?
Non-derived in a sensible manner means that the biggest part of the work was done without using anything of GPLed code, which for me is clearly the case for graphics card drivers.
You can't really tell without actually seeing the code!
Dispute my arguments from above please, but not with technical wishes based on support reasons or somebody's expressed opinions besides the license iteself, but from a legal point of view, because that is all Novell should care about.
Neither of us is a lawyer, ain't it so? So who of us can tell what is and what isn't a violation of the license. There are IP lawyers that say that the use of kernel interfaces indeed constituates a derived work, at least under US law. And as long as there are possibly viable legal claims that can't be ignored easily, a US company like Novell will try to avoid the whole matter as much as possible. Philipp --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org