Re: [Jack-Devel] not resampling

On 11/06/2011 09:14 AM, Fons Adriaensen wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 06, 2011 at 09:31:36AM -0500, jordan wrote:
>
>> It would seem a lot of people think this is a big issue (the nvidia
>> rt-kernel patch), and it sort of is, but the real problem is that the
>> patch can't be distributed as it violates the GPL.
>
> So we can have a situation in which providing the source code
> (or equivalent - patch, sed command,...) would violate the GPL
> and not providing it would not violate the GPL ?

My guess is that the situation is this (which I've run into before with 
some broadcom wireless drivers):

   * People start with the distro's .config, which enables some
     GPL-only features (e.g. lockdep).

   * After they patch their kernel, it will typically not
     compile because of a mix between GPL-only and non-GPL
     features.

   * If it does compile, when the module is loaded at
     runtime then several things in the kernel get UN-loaded
     as soon as the kernel taint is detected.  Sometimes this
     cripples the kernel.

   * Since most folks don't understand the above, the easy
     route is to modify the module so that it will lie to
     the kernel and say, "Uh, yeah... I'm GPL. Really. :-)"
     But the legality of distributing a lying bastard patch
     is unknown... and dubious at least.

   * The proper fix is to remove the GPL-only components
     from your kernel if you wish to use non-GPL components.

-gabriel

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