Date: Sun, 10 Aug 1997 15:25:49 -0400 From: Randall Hopper <rhh@ct.picker.com> To: John-Mark Gurney <gurney_j@resnet.uoregon.edu> Cc: multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: AWE32/64 support? Message-ID: <19970810152549.10220@ct.picker.com> In-Reply-To: <19970810114504.39681@hydrogen.nike.efn.org>; from John-Mark Gurney on Sun, Aug 10, 1997 at 11:45:04AM -0700 References: <Pine.BSF.3.96.970808174412.4871E-100000@zippy.dyn.ml.org> <199708092031.NAA07209@rah.star-gate.com> <19970810113200.09723@ct.picker.com> <19970810114504.39681@hydrogen.nike.efn.org>
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John-Mark Gurney: |Randall Hopper scribbled this message on Aug 10: |> Side note: I'd like to pull in a more recent AWE driver version into |> the tree for everyone, but my understanding is that since its GPLed, this |> prevents inclusion in our kernel source tree. If we made the sound driver |> an LKM, and if the driver author would agree to change to LGPL, I think |> that would let us. But as far as I know, right now we can't so folks have |> to update themselves. | |there already is a src/sys/gnu for copylefted source... it includes the |GPL Floating point emulator and the digiboard driver... so it should |be able to be imported into the source tree... | |will this driver conflict with any non-GPL version of a similar driver in |the source tree? this is about the only problem I can see with it... Based on what I've read on the FreeBSD lists about GPL (and a quick glance at the sgnu package), I'm guessing this is all code that is used to generate stand-alone executables and libraries that that the kernel doesn't build-time link with (e.g. gdb, readline, etc.). Preface: this is second-hand information. In a past list thread on GPL (earlier this year I think), it was said that GPL is written such that compile-time linking GPLed code with other code and then distributing the combo results in that "other code" being auto-GPLed; i.e. choosing to build-time link with GPL constitutes acknowledgement that the distributed code will be released GPL. This was said to prevent linking GPL stuff directly into the kernel. Apparently though, there's legal grounds for invoking LGPLed code in other code without the plague of LGPL legally spreading to it -- by dynamic linking of that code -- e.g. make the LGPL code an LKM. Take this with a grain of salt. An expert opinion is needed here. For example, some of all of the above "GPL"s might should be "LGPL"s or vice versa -- I don't know what the difference is. Randall
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