Re: protecting source code in 2.6

[Bartlomiej Zolnierkiewicz <B.Zolnierkiewicz@elka.pw.edu.pl>]

On Thursday 20 of May 2004 15:18, Jinu M. wrote:
> Hi All,

Hi,

> We are developing a block device driver on linux-2.6.x kernel. We want
> to distribute our driver as sum of source code and librabry/object code.
>
> We have divided the source code into two parts. The os interface module
> and the device interface module. The os interface module (osint.c) has
> all the os interface functions (init, exit, open, close, ioctl, request
> queue handling etc). The device interface module (devint.c) on the other
> hand has all the device interface functions (initialize device, read,
> write etc), these don't use system calls or kernel APIs.
>
> The device interface module is proprietary source and we don't intend
> to distribute it with source code on GPL license.

You may want to reconsider your decision.

- by providing non-GPL driver your driver is very likely
  to not work with future kernel versions due to the fact that
  Linux driver API is not stable (it changes *very* frequently)

- nobody is going to provide support for kernels with your driver
  loaded - you have to deal with bugreports about *all* Linux kernel
  issues from users of your driver

> What we intend to do is, distribute the os interface module (osint.c)
> with
> source code and the device interface module as object code or library.
> The
> user will compile the os interface module on the target box and link it
> with the device interface module to generate the .ko (loadable module).
>
> We are not very sure of how to achieve this.
> Please help us address this issue.

Please be aware of the fact that without 'giving source back'
nobody is going to help you on kernel issues here.

Kind regards,
Bartlomiej

> Thanks in advance,
> -Jinu