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Message-ID: <3f43f78b0810141639w4ec50a08tdc847b16ebcea5be@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:39:42 -0700
From: "Kaz Kylheku" <kkylheku@gmail.com>
To: "Chris Friesen" <cfriesen@nortel.com>
Subject: Re: GPL question: using large contiguous memory in proprietary driver.
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
In-Reply-To: <48F5193B.1010601@nortel.com>
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	 <48F5193B.1010601@nortel.com>
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On Tue, Oct 14, 2008 at 3:12 PM, Chris Friesen <cfriesen@nortel.com> wrote:
> Kaz Kylheku wrote:
>
>> I have the following question. Suppose that some proprietary driver
>> (otherwise completely clean, based only on non-GPL symbols)
>
> The fact that it's not using GPL symbols does not actually mean that the
> driver is not a derivative work of the kernel (and thus subject to the GPL).

One more thing. Here is another question.

Suppose that this proprietary driver can be moved entirely into user
space. It still needs the contiguous buffer, but it can
map it using mmap, given the address.

Can this proprietary user-space application read the address
of this buffer from a custom /proc entry?

Or does this dependency make it a derived work of the kernel?
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