Re: Question About GNU General Public License

[Stefan Monnier]

> Does the FSF's current stance make sense? Is it enforceable? Who knows!

It's been enforced until now (BeOS being a prime example).  Not through
courts, indeed, but that's probably a good thing given the cost of going
through the justice system.

> The important thing is that loading a kernel module would NOT satisfy
> the FSF's criteria for "separateness" and would thus compel the FreeBSD
> Project to license the kernel under the GPL.

I don't think so: AFAIk the FreeBSD's license is compatible with the GPL, so
you can link GPL code with it without changing its license: the result
(i.e. the combination of the FreeBSD kernel and the GPL'd module) is GPL'd,
but it doesn't force the kernel itself to be GPL'd.


        Stefan