Bickering Continues About NVIDIA Using DMA-BUF

[bridgman]

There is an explicit carve-out for "user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls" in the Linux version of the GPL license.

The license is at the root of the kernel source code tree:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git;a=blob;f=COPYING;h=ca442d313d86dc67e0a2e5d584b465bd382cbf5c;hb=HEAD

[XorEaxEax]

Yes, doing well. As a router OS as it seems destined to remain.

So this is your new catchphrase in your neverending trolling against Linux (the existance of which for some reason must scare you), you really think that repeatedly displaying your ignorance is going to amount to anything other than making you look like an even bigger arse?

To begin with learn the difference between an OS and a kernel, the latter is a component in an OS, of which Linux is represented in solutions for desktops, servers, clusters, mobile devices like android phones/pads, embedded in routers (!), watches, fridges, media centers, tv's, etc etc

I find people like you somewhat frightening but more so pathetic, you have no interest in using Linux and yet you are spending so much time making up and spreading lies about it. I wonder what the psychological term is, I guess it's the equivalent of those fundamentalists saying 'god hates fags (insert commies, muslims, jews, lesbians etc here), you will burn in hell', an irrational hatred fueled by some irrational fear.

Personally I have no interest in ever using Windows again, and yet I would never spend a second of my life trolling Windows (or other) forums with lies about Windows, or to attack it at all. I simply don't use it. It takes someone with a particularly frightening mental state, probably in conjunction with having absolutely no life worth mentioning for one to embark on something so pointless.

If Linux is going to be a Crybaby OS, then these companies will just go work with Microsoft and make their flagship handsets and tablets around Windows.

Linux has been a 'crybaby os' for all it's existance (again, kernel not OS) and this has led them to being used by all these companies, so your threats of these companies going somewhere else falls flat. And even if as in your dreams they did, Linux would just keep on going. It's not dependant on particular companies, heck not until fairly recently did the changes made to Linux by Google for android start being backported into mainline rather than being a fork, and had it not been for GPL there likely would never even have been anything available to backport as it would have been a proprietary fork (hello BSD!).

As it is now, with the GPL licencing the mainline kernel maintainers can pick and choose features from forks, or as in this case merge everything necessary to be able to build linux for android directly from the official kernel.

Linux can't 'fail' because it's not a profit driven corporate entity which needs to appease shareholders, it's a collaborative project (largest open source) in which tons of companies and individuals pool their resources into making a world class kernel with built-in world class hardware support which is then employed in an incredibly wide range of solutions.

[mememe]

There is an explicit carve-out for "user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls" in the Linux version of the GPL license.

The license is at the root of the kernel source code tree:

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kerne...2cbf5c;hb=HEAD

Yeah, this is technically not an exemption to the license itself. What Linus writes here is that the userland programs are not derived from the kernel and therefore the terms of the GPL don't apply to it anyway.

[joe_gunner]

Impossible. It's part of the kernel. Kernel is GPL. The only way to relicense it would be to remove it from the kernel.

Re-licensing it, maybe, but if a piece of code is dual-licensed, another person can choose whichever license he/she wants to use. They are not cumulative.

[RCL_]

Yeah, but then we could just use ReactOS or FreeBSD instead of Linux.

I don't see any problem with that.

There is an explicit carve-out for "user programs that use kernel services by normal system calls" in the Linux version of the GPL license.

But somehow NDISwrapper is allowed.

What NVidia needs to do is to supply a patch that makes GPL symbols available via normal EXPORT_SYMBOL and make patching the kernel a part of driver installation process. Since we (end users) are free to modify kernel in any way we want, nothing will prevent us from combining "free" and "non-free" code this way as long as we don't redistribute the mix.

[tomato]

This is of course the main problem with GPL and the zealots. Linux needs a different license, probably BSD or MIT or something in between a permissive license and the GPL, but it's not possible to ask every developer who ever contributed to Linux to do that. All that's necessary is to dual-license the related code under a more permissive license, but that would make Alan Cox bitch like a human centipede.

Alan Cox and Linus Torvalds, the 2 big mouths who haven't really written anything meaningful in the last 10 years tell nvidia to fuck off when they are actually trying to integrate better with Linux. There's now a good chance that nvidia will simply tell those two to fuck off in return.

FreeBSD will have no problem taking over the Linux/nvidia market because their license is vastly superior and isn't driven by communist philosophy

oh, just shut up you FUD-spreaders

if not for GPL there would be no Linux, just look at Apple contributions back to BSD, oh wait, there are none

[XorEaxEax]

Whether there's really a difference between EXPORT_SYMBOL and EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL is pretty tenuous, and NVIDIA is probably already accessing EXPORT_SYMBOL code.

Here's what Linus wrote on the subject:

I've talked to a lawyer or two, and (a) there's an absolutely _huge_ difference and (b) they liked it.

The fact is, the law isn't a blind and mindless computer that takes what you say literally. Intent matters a LOT. And using the xxx_GPL() version to show that it's an internal interface is very meaningful indeed.

One of the lawyers said that it was a much better approach than trying to make the license explain all the details - codifying the intention in the code itself is not only more flexible, but a lot less likely to be misunderstood.

Now I see why Sun released all their stuff under the CDDL. One so they don't have to deal with GPL bullshit, and two just so they can stab a fork in the eye of these Stallman nuthuggers.

Sun created CDDL because their market share was being eaten by Linux and they obviously didn't want to opensource their best features in a way that Linux could use it. But don't let that get in the way of your Linux/GPL hatred.

And when Oracle then bought Sun they stopped releasing improvements to zfs (which was their CDDL-licenced prised possession) as open source and are now focusing much effort on their opensource GPL-licenced btrfs filesystem for Linux.

[crazycheese]

Here's what Linus wrote on the subject:



Sun created CDDL because their market share was being eaten by Linux and they obviously didn't want to opensource their best features in a way that Linux could use it. But don't let that get in the way of your Linux/GPL hatred.

And when Oracle then bought Sun they stopped releasing improvements to zfs (which was their CDDL-licenced prised possession) as open source and are now focusing much effort on their opensource GPL-licenced btrfs filesystem for Linux.

And yet they died. But there is a bonus - their ZFS is not compatible with Linux now per license, so the corpse is still floating around unable to attach itself to high-performance kernel.
Not only they screwed themself by being unable to ADAPT, they screwed ZFS as well.

Double failtality!

[RCL_]

To reiterate, the problem seems to have an easy solution.

NVidia needs to create a proxy module that makes GPL symbols available to non-GPL modules. End users are free to install that as long as they don't redistribute the resulting mix of "free" and non-"free" code. Compiling & installing such module can be made a part of NVidia installer.

EDIT: to avoid legal issues, they should cease calling their drivers "Linux drivers", but instead give fancy name to binary API provided by the said module (e.g. UNIX Video API) and call the driver as "UNIX Video API-compatible driver", to make it clear that you cannot install them if you aren't running the UVAwrapper module. This will make the situation similar to NDISwrapper.

[log0]

To reiterate, the problem seems to have an easy solution.

NVidia needs to create a proxy module that makes GPL symbols available to non-GPL modules. End users are free to install that as long as they don't redistribute the resulting mix of "free" and non-"free" code. Compiling & installing such a module can be made a part of their installer.

I heard of this idea before. Seems to be the standard trick to work around GPL. Define an interface not derived from the GPL code you want to use. Write a wrapper(proxy) for the GPL code which exposes your interface. This wrapper will be dual licensed. Link against your interface as you see fit.