Doesn't GPL actually offer a person a freedom to study the code? Isn't it a common phenomena of rewriting GPL Linux Driver into BSD Licensed driver which will be put into mainline *BSD?
I know the case of OpenBSD 'stealing' GPL code from broadcom linux driver, but it was done by a naive kernel developer who copy-pasted the code and the maintainer who didn't bother to check the authenticity of the code. But AFAIK no GPL driver writer has a problem with the driver being rewritten into BSD licence.
GPL is absolutely incompatible with BSD licensing. The license does not allow for one to "rewrite" the same code into a BSD licensed driver.
Of course one could clean room reverse engineer the GPL driver and then give the spec to someone else to implement and create a BSD driver, that would probably be ok.
Not exactly incompatible, as you can license something under both of them at once. But yes, you cannot relicense it without permission from the contributors; this is true for pretty much any license.
Doesn't GPL actually offer a person a freedom to study the code? Isn't it a common phenomena of rewriting GPL Linux Driver into BSD Licensed driver which will be put into mainline *BSD?
I know the case of OpenBSD 'stealing' GPL code from broadcom linux driver, but it was done by a naive kernel developer who copy-pasted the code and the maintainer who didn't bother to check the authenticity of the code. But AFAIK no GPL driver writer has a problem with the driver being rewritten into BSD licence.
MS Windows kernel code is far from being BSD licensed though.
GPL is absolutely incompatible with BSD licensing. The license does not allow for one to "rewrite" the same code into a BSD licensed driver.
Of course one could clean room reverse engineer the GPL driver and then give the spec to someone else to implement and create a BSD driver, that would probably be ok.
Not exactly incompatible, as you can license something under both of them at once. But yes, you cannot relicense it without permission from the contributors; this is true for pretty much any license.
1 reply →