Linking a proprietary lib.a into the Linux kernel?

[Luke Scharf]

I hope that this isn't a FAQ issue.  Also, I'll leave out the vendor and
device name for the good of all involved.  :-)

Anyway, we purchased a board.  The board is expensive (~$16k new) and
aimed at a very small market.  The vendor ONLY releases the Linux device
driver as a binary in the form of a file called libMyDevice.a.  This
gets linked into the kernel at compile time.  All other changes are
provided by a diff.

BTW, we had to sign an agreement promising not to reverse-engineer our
copy of their board.

Is this allowed under the GPL?

Thank you!
-Luke

P.S. I'm not on this list, so I'd appreciate it if you all would CC me!
-- 
Luke Scharf, Student Researcher & Sysadmin
Virginia Tech Configurable Computing
http://www.ccm.ece.vt.edu/scharf.htm
:wq