policy on GPL'd drivers?

[David Leimbach]

On Tuesday, May 27, 2003, at 07:36 AM, Wilko Bulte wrote:

> On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 02:35:41PM +0200, Stijn Hoop wrote:
>> On Tue, May 27, 2003 at 07:28:29AM -0500, David Leimbach wrote:
>>> I have the GPLd source to the nforce drivers for Linux
>>> to support the nVidia nforce and nforce2 drivers in the kernel.
>>>
>>> To port these to FreeBSD would be an interesting task [if it hasn't
>>> already been done] and I have been looking for an excuse to get
>>> down and dirty with FBSD.
>>> [Yes... talk is cheap... just do it... Nike-a-go-go etc etc... :)]
>>>
>>> What is the policy on drivers that are clearly going to have to be
>>> GPLd by the viral clause since I am referencing a GPL driver to do 
>>> the
>>> porting work myself?  Are these allowed in the kernel?
>
> Yes, see for example the GPL_ed floating point emulator.
>
> However the idea is that all GPL infected stuff be isolated, allowing a
> fully working kernel without GPL stuff in there.


Sounds like a "kernel module" is the way to go then.  Perhaps it could
exist in the ports tree instead of the mainline kernel sources :).  I 
know
I'd be happy with that... the problem is hosting the driver since I am 
sure
"patching" it won't be enough to map the linux innards to freebsd's.


>
>>> <semi-joke>
>>> Can we have a "tainted" flag for kernels running GPL drivers :).
>>> </semi-joke>
>>
>> I'm interested in this too -- I have a working FreeBSD prototype of 
>> the
>> i8k Linux driver, fan control for Dell laptops. I was planning to ask
>> the author if he was willing to relicense it to BSD, but failing that
>
> A BSD license is ***strongly*** prefered.
>

Indeed.  I am very grateful that nVidia open sourced the driver at all.

I see that it was merged into 2.5.70's linux kernel version so it will 
be there
supported in 2.6.x.  I would hate to have to use other hardware for 
achieving
the same effect on FreeBSD and lately.


>> the answer to this question might be interesting.
>
> -- 
> |   / o / /_  _   		wilko at FreeBSD.org
> |/|/ / / /(  (_)  Bulte