| Shipping non-open graphics drivers together with the linux kernel is a violation of the GPL. Providing non-open binaries separately from the linux kernel is not. The GPL only applies to distribution, if you're not distributing GPL code (for instance, only your non-open drivers) there's no problem. The GPL puts no restrictions on use, i.e. once you've got both linux and your non-open drivers the GPL doesn't care whether you combine the two. Additionally, as people point out the license can only be enforced by copyright holders, so if no linux copyright owners bother to sue people distributing non-open drivers, nothing will happen. This is however rather shaky legal ground, as at any point you could get sued for violating the license. This also why linux doesn't ship ZFS, since the CDDL is incompatible with GPL any company distributing linux with ZFS would open itself to a potential lawsuit by any linux copyright holder. You can imagine most companies are not very happy taking this risk. With regards to Richard Yao's comments, of course he's not worried. Copyright violation (which is what breaking the GPL is) only lets you sue for monetary damages or to stop the distribution. There's zero reason for people to sue most linux distros as they're non-profits that aren't charging for distribution. Since it's nearly impossible to show monetary loss by a linux copyright holder (it's being distributed for free!) The only thing to possibly do would be to sue the distros into ceasing distribution, which seems an undesirable outcome for most linux copyright holders, so that's unlikely to be enforced. Since GPL doesn't restrict actual usage the users of these distros have nothing to worry about anyway. In summary, you only have to worry about being sued if you are both violating the GPL and making some sort of money while doing it. But the fact that you probably won't get sued doesn't mean that what you are doing is not illegal. - Well, in any country that's signed the Berne Convention, anyway. |