Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750994AbXBPLva (ORCPT ); Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:51:30 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1751106AbXBPLva (ORCPT ); Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:51:30 -0500 Received: from ns.firmix.at ([62.141.48.66]:42607 "EHLO ns.firmix.at" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750994AbXBPLva (ORCPT ); Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:51:30 -0500 Subject: RE: GPL vs non-GPL device drivers From: Bernd Petrovitsch To: davids@webmaster.com Cc: jas6180@gmail.com, "Linux-Kernel@Vger. Kernel. Org" In-Reply-To: References: Content-Type: text/plain Organization: Firmix software GmbH Date: Fri, 16 Feb 2007 12:51:17 +0100 Message-Id: <1171626677.23981.29.camel@tara.firmix.at> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.8.3 (2.8.3-1.fc6) Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Firmix-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.56 on ns.firmix.at X-Firmix-Spam-Score: -2.417 () AWL,BAYES_00,FORGED_RCVD_HELO X-Firmix-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.417 required=5 X-Spam-Score: -2.417 () AWL,BAYES_00,FORGED_RCVD_HELO Content-Disposition: inline Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1116 Lines: 26 On Fri, 2007-02-16 at 03:42 -0800, David Schwartz wrote: [...] > Not quite. Copyright is: This particular implementation is mine, but you are > free to implement any idea any *other* way you want. You simply can't > implement an idea precisely the way I did it, but all ideas are open to you. Actually you can legally (at least/even with author's rights hereover). But it will be very hard to convince a judge and/or lawyers that you didn't actually copy it. And the question is moot anyways since it is extremely unlikely you end up with the same implementation for the same problem (unless the problem is small/simple/trivial enough like "binary search in a sorted array on int's"). Bernd -- Firmix Software GmbH http://www.firmix.at/ mobil: +43 664 4416156 fax: +43 1 7890849-55 Embedded Linux Development and Services - 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/