Subject: Re: GPL Violation of 'sveasoft' with GPL Linux Kernel/Busybox +code
From: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>
To: Alan Cox <alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk>
Cc: Kyle Moffett <mrmacman_g4@mac.com>, Bill Davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>,
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	<lkml@twilight-hall.net>,
       Michael Poole <mdpoole@troilus.org>, davids@webmaster.com,
       Dmitry Torokhov <dtor_core@ameritech.net>,
       Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
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Date: Mon, 15 Nov 2004 14:47:24 +0000
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On Wed, 2004-11-10 at 22:14 +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> On Mer, 2004-11-10 at 23:09, Kyle Moffett wrote:
> > GPL.  I believe that a single binary firmware image is a single "work"
> > according to the definition provided in the GPL, and therefore by
> > distributing their code as a part of it, they have implicitly applied 
> 
> The firmware image is a file system so I'd suspect its "mere
> aggregation" just like say a CD of GPL and BSD software, or your root
> file system...

That's possibly true of any userspace applications they've added.

However, if you were arguing that the presence of the GPL'd kernel and
the non-GPL'd modules was OK because it's "mere aggregation", that would
be a different and far less supportable position -- since the beast
cannot even come close to serving its purpose or being at all useful if
you take away either the kernel, or the modules in question. 
Distributing a work which depends on both the kernel and those network
driver modules is a clear violation of the GPL. But that's something
that Cisco themselves are doing.

-- 
dwmw2

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