DRM radeon i2c support and GPL

[Alex Deucher]

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 13:38:15 -0400, Adam Jackson <ajax at nwnk.net> wrote:
> On Monday 20 September 2004 12:59, Jon Smirl wrote:
> > On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 12:29:30 -0400, Adam Jackson <ajax at nwnk.net> wrote:
> > > License compatibility != OS compatibility, please don't conflate the two.
> > >  X runs on more than just Linux, and source is distributed as an
> > > aggregate.  If
> >
> > The Linux DRM driver does not run anywhere but on Linux. The GPL code
> > is isolated to the Linux DRM driver.
> >
> > I wonder if DRM isn't GPL already by accident. DRM has been included
> > in the Linux kernel under the GPL license. DRM has also accepted many
> > bug patches back from the kernel people. If a fork had occurred
> > between kernel and DRM it would be clear than one fork is GPL and one
> > BSD. But the code never forked. Since there is only one code base and
> > that code base has been released GPL via the kernel, so we may have
> > inadvertently made DRM GPL.
> 
> I would read it as "since the code never forked, we're still BSD".
> 
> Inclusion is not conversion, in this case.  All the copyright statements in
> the DRM source (excluding your recent commit) specify BSD licenses.  If the
> bug-fixers wanted their changes to apply under the GPL they should have
> indicated that by changing the copyright statement at the top of the file.
> 
> The aggregate kernel is GPL, yes, but that doesn't mean all the components
> are.  ppp_deflate.c has gotten fixes from kernel people too, but it's still
> BSD-licensed.


I've never understood why the aggregate X (which includes some non MIT
licensed code) can't have multiple licenses.  The linux kernel does;
other projects do.  as long as it's properly labled in the code.
People use X on linux.  people run gnome on BSD. technically X and BSD
have slightly different licenes too.

Alex

> 
> > I'd feel a whole lot better about the licensing if BSD and Linux DRM
> > were split into two repositories.
> 
> That still wouldn't address the issue of inclusion in Xorg, unless Xorg were
> to only ship with the BSD DRM.  And it would probably demote the BSD OSes to
> fifth-class citizen status.  Can't say as I'm a fan of that idea.
> 
> > > it's really that big of a deal, ask the author of the GPL code to allow
> > > you to add it to DRM under an X-friendly license.
> >
> > This is a waste of time. I know that some of the authors have a GPL or
> > die attitude towards device driver code.
> 
> Reimplementing code that the original author doesn't want to relicense is
> nothing new under the sun (freeglut).  I believe that splintering the code
> base into universal and GPL versions is a bad idea, because it means any code
> in the GPL version that someone wants to use in the universal version has to
> be written twice - inevitably diverging the two trees and creating the sort
> of cross-merge hell we're trying to get away from.
> 
> If we're going to "waste time" like this, we might as well do it once, up
> front, and be done with it.
> 
> - ajax
> 
> 
> 
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