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List:       coda-announce
Subject:    Re: Liscense issues..
From:       kragen () pobox ! com (Kragen Sitaker)
Date:       1999-01-07 22:06:31
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On Thu, 7 Jan 1999, Sean E. Millichamp wrote:
> Disclaimer: IANAL
> 
> While there is often much BSD-ish code in various Linux distributions I
> thought that the GPL prohibited inclusion of, or linking to, any code that
> is non-GPL.

Pretty much.  You can license your version of XFree86 code under the
GPL if you like.  So it's OK to link it with GPLed code.

>  Since the Linux kernel is GPL would that not prohibit the
> linking/inclusion of BSD code into the kernel tree?

Yes, because the BSD license includes some restrictions that make it
impossible to distribute it under the GPL.

> I think that the only
> way that it could happen legally is by a loadable module, am I way off on
> this?

RMS believes that loadable modules violate the GPL; Linus disagrees.
Eventually someone will sue someone, and it'll be settled in court.

-- 
<kragen@pobox.com>       Kragen Sitaker     <http://www.pobox.com/~kragen/>
[around 1998-12-23], it is amazing to watch fear and loathing and greed at
play with the more speculative Internet stocks.  To call this a tulip
craze would be a vast understatement. -- Adam Rifkin, <adam@cs.caltech.edu>

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