Re: [linux-audio-user] Interesting Tidbit: The Midas XL8 uses Linux

On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 18:04 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 16:50 -0500, Jan Depner wrote:
> > On Sat, 2006-06-10 at 14:23 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> > > Nvidia driver is a special case - it is not a derived work of the kernel
> > > because they use the same binary blob the Windows driver uses.
> > >
> > > I covered this earlier in the thread.
> > >
> >
> > That's merely semantics, you can use any binary blob you want as
> > long as you don't derive from GPL'ed software. It makes absolutely no
> > difference what it was "specifically designed" to run on. This is a
> > matter of copyright law, not coding.
> >
>
> Um.... of course it's a matter of copyright law, that's what this thread
> is about. Who said anything about coding?
>
> My point was that as far as copyright law is concerned, a driver written
> for the Linux kernel is a derived work of Linux.
>
> Of course I could be wrong as it has not been tested in court, but that
> seems to be the consensus among the kernel people who have talked to
> lawyers about it.
>

    That's the consensus among kernel people. Not lawyers. Take it to
court first. It has zero chance in that venue.

-- 
Jan 'Evil Twin' Depner
The Fuzzy Dice
http://myweb.cableone.net/eviltwin69/fuzzy.html
"As we enjoy great advantages from the invention of others, we should be 
glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours, and 
this we should do freely and generously."
Benjamin Franklin, on declining patents offered by the governor of 
Pennsylvania for his "Pennsylvania Fireplace", c. 1744