GPL vs BSD Licence

[TM4525 at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/28/04 4:49:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time, 
ph.schulz at gmx.de writes:
>  I don't think that Allot modifies the Linux kernel. I wouldn't expect 
>them to do so and I don't see an obvious reason why they should (*). 
>Obviously some of their custom stuff needs to run inside kernel, but I 
>rather think they enhance the kernel with some loadable modules or 
>whatever (does Linux have KLDs?).
Then you either know nothing about programming or nothing about their
products. Do you think they do gigabit bandwidth management, with 
features not in the kernel, from user space? Plus, if they were using an
unmodified kernel, why not provide the source? Put it on the machine.
Whats the harm?

 > A while back, I fast-read a post of Linus Torvalds to a mailing list 
>saying why he thinks that binary-only enhancements to linux must be GPL 
>licenced (and I believed the statemant was discussed on a FreeBSD-list 
>also). His argument was that by using the kernel headers your work 
>automatically becomes a derived work, thus it needs to be licensed under 
>the GPL. I seem to recall the discussion was about nVidia's closed 

Modules use headers and are not "GPLed", so clearly you're just
plain wrong.

Linus is just a big dope anyway, so who cares what he thinks? He's like
Kerry. He thinks whatever is convenient for him to think at the time.