Date: Tue, 5 Feb 2008 15:00:08 +0200
From: Adrian Bunk <bunk@kernel.org>
To: Michael Gerdau <mgerdau@tiscali.de>
Cc: Lee Revell <rlrevell@joe-job.com>, Chris Friesen <cfriesen@nortel.com>,
       Giridhar Pemmasani <pgiri@yahoo.com>, Pavel Roskin <proski@gnu.org>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, Jon Masters <jonathan@jonmasters.org>,
       Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
Subject: Re: ndiswrapper and GPL-only symbols redux
Message-ID: <20080205130008.GB21042@cs181133002.pp.htv.fi>
References: <20080129225701.GS8767@does.not.exist> <75b66ecd0801301136n193fa44bg890ad4dab9b61eb5@mail.gmail.com> <20080130202821.GP29368@does.not.exist> <200801310200.49236.mgerdau@tiscali.de>
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On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 02:00:31AM +0100, Michael Gerdau wrote:
> > > > IANAL, and I would therefore ask a lawyer whether, and if yes under
> > > > which circumstances, shipping a binary driver written for another OS
> > > > dynamically linked into the Linux kernel would not be a criminal offense.
> > > 
> > > Please stop throwing around words like "criminal".  If this is in fact
> > > illegal it would be a civil matter.
> > 
> > You are living in a country where copyright violations can't bring 
> > people into jail?
> 
> AFAICS you are misunderstanding the words "criminal" and "civil matter".
> 
> AFAIK in german law the difference between the two is that "criminal"
> offences are prosecuted by the government out of their own accord while
> "civil matters" require someone else to sue.
> 
> Murder and robbery are criminal offences.
> 
> Assuming the above is correct then copyright violations definitely are
> "civil matters" in germany regardless whether you could go into jail or not.

Please read a book or ask someone who knows what he is talking about to 
explain the basics of legal systems to you.

> Best,
> Michael

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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