Why is Fedora not a Free GNU/Linux distributions?

[Les Mikesell]

Rahul Sundaram wrote:
> 
>> On the other hand, Linus was once widely quoted as saying that 
>> loadable binary driver modules were not derivative works of the kernel 
>> - and I believe that the initial popularity of depended on that 
>> interpretation just as much as the wide use of glibc depends on it not 
>> claiming programs that use it as derivatives.  He has waffled on that 
>> position more recently but there is no clear statement or legal 
>> precedent.
> 
> You have made similar statements in the past while providing no 
> references every single time in the discussion even when asked. If you 
> truly believe in what you are saying, I would ask you (again) to provide 
> a direct quote. If he was so widely quoted on this as you claim, this 
> should be no problem at all. I very much doubt you will.

Does this direct quote from 1995 help your memory problem?

    "Another way to look at this - using the legal rather than the
     moral viewpoint - is to just see module loading as "use" of the
     kernel, rather than as linking against it.  I prefer to explain
     the rationale behind it using the _moral_ reason to do it, though."

http://groups.google.com/group/gnu.misc.discuss/msg/d5af1cc0012c3bec

Hence his exception to the GPL permitting use of the kernel interfaces. 
And if you read his statement there on why it is OK to have a non-GPL 
AFS module, you might perhaps understand why I am perplexed that it is 
not OK to have a non-GPL zfs module (ignoring the practical issues of 
connecting the code for the moment).

There was also a magazine interview in that time frame with essentially 
this same content, and I'm sure I also saw postings by Richard Stallman 
and Eben Moglen that clearly indicated that they understood Linus' 
postition on this point even though they disagreed with it being a good 
idea.  It's hard to search for things that far back but there must be 
copies still around somewhere.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
      lesmikesell at gmail.com