Subject: Re: Licence question - Linux sources
To: Matthew Orgass <darkstar@pgh.net>
From: Bill Studenmund <wrstuden@nas.nasa.gov>
List: current-users
Date: 03/07/2000 10:30:02
On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Matthew Orgass wrote:

> On Tue, 7 Mar 2000, Dave Huang wrote:
> 
> > But the question was whether the individual file was under the GPL...
> > although IANAL and know little about IP licensing, etc... it seems like
> > a file with no license agreement at all is copyrighted to the author of
> > the code, and one would have to talk to him about the license terms. I
> > do not think it's automatically GPLed because it's in the Linux kernel,
> > but it's not public domain either.
> 
>   If there was no license on it, then it would not be possible to use it
> in Linux.  However, it is distributed as part of the Linux kernel which is
> GPLed as a whole.  IANAL either, but I am quite sure that this means it is
> under the GPL. 

I think things might have changed with GPL version 2, but GPL version 1
did NOT require everything else be GPL'd, just everything else had to be
as free as the GPL. The advertizing clause Berkeley added to its license
was not that free, thus the GPL & Berkeley licenses don't mix problem.
Note that most of our ext2fs support came right out of the Linux kernel -
those files weren't GPL'd. They just were as free as the GPL.

JD: make sure there's not a file somewhere else, say in that directory,
which expresses a copyright & license on those files. If there's not, then
you're free and clear.

Take care,

Bill