nvidia

[Les Mikesell]

Alan Cox wrote:
>> Nvidia isn't 'bad' in any normal sense.  They just have not made source 
>> code available for their drivers available under GPL terms as some small 
>> fraction of users would like to demand.  
> 
> Please see the COPYING file and the GPL licence. If you are creating a
> derivative work of the Linux kernel as a lot of us think the Nvidia
> drivers for Linux are then you are required to abide by the licence, in
> exactly the same way as you are required to obey other licences.

It's very imaginative to consider a device driver for a device that 
clearly works under other operating systems to be a derivative of one of 
those OS's.  And the position would be a little more believable if 
accompanied by some court decisions that permitted interfaces needed for 
normal operation to be copyrighted. But I don't think you really want 
the latter...

In any case the result would just be that nvidia owners won't be able to 
run Linux.  And the real question is, why do you want that - or even to 
make it more difficult than necessary for those users?

-- 
   Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com