Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S261189AbVDTA1g (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:27:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S261207AbVDTA1g (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:27:36 -0400 Received: from alog0079.analogic.com ([208.224.220.94]:19378 "EHLO chaos.analogic.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S261189AbVDTA1d (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:27:33 -0400 Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 20:26:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "Richard B. Johnson" Reply-To: linux-os@analogic.com To: Chris Friesen cc: Lennart Sorensen , Karel Kulhavy , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: GPL violation by CorAccess? In-Reply-To: <42659620.5050002@nortel.com> Message-ID: References: <20050419175743.GA8339@beton.cybernet.src> <20050419182529.GT17865@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> <42656319.6090703@nortel.com> <42659620.5050002@nortel.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII; format=flowed Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1865 Lines: 45 On Tue, 19 Apr 2005, Chris Friesen wrote: > Richard B. Johnson wrote: > >> No. Accompany it with a written offer to __provide__ the source >> code for any GPL stuff they used (like the kernel or drivers). >> Anything at the application-level is NOT covered by the GPL. >> They do not have to give away their trade-secrets. > > GPL'd applications would still be covered by the GPL, no? > You mean like `ls` and `init` ??? Sure. I don't think any serious embedded stuff would use that, though. Typically an embedded system would start with a new application called 'init'. It wouldn't use a SYS-V startup and certainly wouldn't have a shell. The new init would do everything including mounting any file- systems and initializing networking all by itself without any help from the usual applications. It might fork-off a few different tasks to handle different things. For instance, the system shown probably handles the furnace and air-conditioner as a separate task. The shades and blinds are probably another and, certainly, communicating with the robot that mows the lawn would require a separate task just to handle GPS. > If I buy their product, I should be able to ask them for the source to > all GPL'd entities that are present in the system, including the kernel, > drivers, and all GPL'd userspace apps. > > Any *new* apps that they wrote they would of course be free to keep private. > Yep. Cheers, Dick Johnson Penguin : Linux version 2.6.11 on an i686 machine (5537.79 BogoMips). Notice : All mail here is now cached for review by Dictator Bush. 98.36% of all statistics are fiction. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/