Closed source modules will be banned from kernel?

[Rahul Sundaram]

Antonio Olivares wrote:
> If it did not make much of a difference, then why is Linus Torvalds very much opposed to releasing the kernel(s) in this new version?
> 

Linus doesn't support proprietary drivers and never mentioned anything 
about it in his explanations on not moving to GPLv3. He also explicitly 
said that he was willing to consider it if others like Solaris move over 
to enable better code sharing.

A couple of references:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6171300-7.html

http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/22/217

> I see many projects are thinking of releasing in GPL version 3, but they need to contact some authors about it.  Mplayer is one that comes to mind, I read in their site something like that.  

This depends on the number of copyright holders and whether they have 
assigned copyright to a single entity like the FSF or other 
organizations. If the original code was not licensed under GPLv2 or 
later, then all the significant copyright holders have to explicitly 
agree to relicense the code. Some projects might just not do that.

Rahul