2011-03-31 15:19:36

by Ramya Desai

Subject: GPL License Query on a Plain Linux Application

Dear All,

I have written an application where it uses plain system calls like
open, read, write etc. and runs in the user space. My question here,
is this application comes under GPL?

Any ideas / hints would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Regards,
Ramya.

2011-03-31 15:23:09

by Felipe Balbi

Subject: Re: GPL License Query on a Plain Linux Application

hi,

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 08:49:34PM +0530, Ramya Desai wrote:
> I have written an application where it uses plain system calls like
> open, read, write etc. and runs in the user space. My question here,
> is this application comes under GPL?
>
> Any ideas / hints would be appreciated.

you might want to ask FSF.org for that. But bottomline is that if you're
not linking with any GPL code, you don't have to be GPL if you don't
want to, although there are many benefits of doing so (IMHO).

--
balbi

2011-03-31 15:24:08

by Alan

Subject: Re: GPL License Query on a Plain Linux Application

On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:49:34 +0530
Ramya Desai <[email protected]> wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I have written an application where it uses plain system calls like
> open, read, write etc. and runs in the user space. My question here,
> is this application comes under GPL?

This is a technical not a legal list - I would ask the Linux Foundation
if you want a legal answer.

In general though your question seems really to be "is my application a
derivative work of the kernel". That would be a surprising interpretation
(speaking as a non-lawyer) but also one the community wanted to be sure
never occurred. Hence the COPYING file for the kernel itself states:

NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.


Alan

2011-04-01 10:56:13

by Ramya Desai

Subject: Re: GPL License Query on a Plain Linux Application

On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 8:54 PM, Alan Cox <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 20:49:34 +0530
> Ramya Desai <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I have written an application where it uses plain system calls like
>> open, read, write etc. and runs in the user space. My question here,
>> is this application comes under GPL?
>
> This is a technical not a legal list - I would ask the Linux Foundation
> if you want a legal answer.
>
> In general though your question seems really to be "is my application a
> derivative work of the kernel". That would be a surprising interpretation
> (speaking as a non-lawyer) but also one the community wanted to be sure
> never occurred. Hence the COPYING file for the kernel itself states:
>
> ? NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
> ?services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
> ?of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
> ?Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
> ?Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
> ?kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

Dear Alan,

Thanks for your valuable information. I got what I need.

Thanks and Regards,
Ramya.

>
> Alan
>