[maemo-developers] Corporate ownership of open source projects [LWN]

[From: Frantisek Dufka]

ed at okerson.com wrote:
> A possible interim solution is to use one like nVidia has used for years
> for their closed video card drivers.  Provide a binary object that
> implements all the core functionality of the chip, with a public API. 
> Then have an open source kernel module wrapper that calls the funcions in
> the public API of the binary module.  Then the open source part can be
> compiled for any kernel version and simply link in the closed object.

It is almost like this but not exactly. There is cx3110x open source 
glue part cx3110x.ko (see http://cx3110x.garage.maemo.org/), so far so 
good, but unfortunately the closed part (umac.ko) is full kernel module 
not linkable object file so it too depends on kernel version and sadly 
even specific kernel configuration, see
https://garage.maemo.org/pipermail/cx3110x-devel/2007-December/000007.html

I don't understand where the line in GPL vs binary only code in kernel 
lies.  I'd say that using struct sk_buff should make it derived work of 
linux kernel and subject to GPL but of course IANAL.

Frantisek