[sldev] Re: [Opensim-dev] Violating the GPL by looking (Re: Voice Module)

[Argent Stonecutter]

On 2008-03-19, at 14:38, Paul Oppenheim (Poppy Linden) wrote:
> I'm curious - how did the Linux binary compatibility layer get  
> added to FreeBSD?

Linux is a bit of a special case.

A lot of it could be implemented based on documentation, without  
looking at the Linux kernel.

But in addition Linus Torvalds has pretty consistently taken a  
position of detente, for example he and other Linux developers have  
made attempts to draw a line between even kernel interfaces that can  
only be used by GPL components and those that do not require the GPL.  
Without this kind of thing binary-only drivers would not be possible,  
and this line (fuzzy as it has been at times) has been maintained  
even when people have used this as a "cut-out" for components that  
have not traditionally been considered drivers.

So there's a history of people working on Linux and implementing what  
could by the FSF interpretation be seen as "derived works" of Linux  
without having to make them GPL.

Linden Labs has not taken the same position. In previous discussions  
here I've seen what seems to me to be a reluctance to risk any kind  
of "cut-out" becoming possible. I understand that position: Linden  
Labs is not in the same kind of situation as Linux. But it does mean  
that this is not a really good analogy.

There might be better examples in /usr/src/contrib, though these are  
userland components.