Re: [gentoo-user] Re: [WAS: keyboard stops working] Recent kernels block the loading of non-GPL kernel modules

[Rich Freeman]

On Tue, Aug 18, 2015 at 11:12 PM, Michael Orlitzky <mjo@g.o> wrote:
> On 08/18/2015 08:39 PM, Dale wrote:
>>
>> Here's a clue.  Why doesn't the kernel devs let users decide what
>> drivers they are comfy with using?  If they don't like the drivers, then
>> make it so that users have to install their own just like we have for
>> ages but don't disable them or make them not load and work.
>
> A lot of people build and distribute kernels. The EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL
> thing is there to prevent those people from linking closed-source
> modules against certain parts of the kernel, because the result would
> not be distributable under the GPL. The legal issue is there regardless:
> you can't link closed-source stuff to GPL code and then distribute the
> result.
>

I don't really buy into that argument here.

What makes nvidia.ko a derivative-work of the kernel?  It doesn't
contain any code not written by them.

I can buy into the argument that once it is loaded into memory and
linked against the kernel that the image in RAM becomes a derivative
work, but nobody is making copies of that image or redistributing it.

Take a 1950s science-fiction movie.  If you add voice-over and call it
Mystery Science Theater 3000 that is a derivative work, because it
incorporates parts of the original work.  If you put the voice-over on
separate media and call it Rifftrax it isn't a derivative work,
because it doesn't incorporate any elements of the original.  That
remains true even if it is dynamically linked to the original by
adding an instruction to unpause the recording when the movie title
appears.

The whole GPL-prevents-linking argument seems rather tenuous to me,
and as far as I'm aware it has never been upheld by a court.  It is of
course accepted as gospel in FOSS circles, but as far as I can tell it
is based on arguments that are similar to those employed by the likes
of Oracle and SCO wanting to copyright enums and APIs.

If somebody distributes a modified kernel I buy that they have to
publish the source code.  If somebody says "take your kernel image and
insert this blob of bytes at address foo" I don't see how making or
obeying that statement is illegal.  Well, a dynamic library or kernel
module is just a standardized way of doing just that.

The patch I wrote is arguably a derivative work of the kernel
(reproduced here for convenience):

diff --git a/include/linux/export.h b/include/linux/export.h
index 96e45ea..b1bc4c3 100644
--- a/include/linux/export.h
+++ b/include/linux/export.h
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ extern struct module __this_module;
        __EXPORT_SYMBOL(sym, "")

 #define EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL(sym)                                 \
-       __EXPORT_SYMBOL(sym, "_gpl")
+       __EXPORT_SYMBOL(sym, "")

 #define EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL_FUTURE(sym)                          \
        __EXPORT_SYMBOL(sym, "_gpl_future")

Now, instead of writing that suppose I instead had written this: "Edit
the file include/linux/export.h, go to line 72 and remote the text
enclosed in quotation marks, leaving an empty string."  Would that
statement be a derivative work in any way of the kernel?  That would
be like arguing that I own the rights to anything anybody says which
happens to mention my name.

-- 
Rich