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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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Upstream Linux Developers Take Aim At TUXEDO's Out-Of-Tree GPLv3 Drivers (www.phoronix.com)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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A new patch series posted today to the Linux kernel mailing list would block kernel modules/drivers from TUXEDO Computers from accessing GPL-only symbols in the kernel.

TUXEDO Computers maintains a set of kernel drivers currently out-of-tree for their various laptops for additional functionality around power profiles, keyboard backlight controls, WMI, sensor monitoring, the embedded controller, and other functionality. They have said they want to eventually mainline these drivers but in the name of allowing for rapid hardware support they maintain them out-of-tree and ship them with their Ubuntu-based TUXEDO OS and also have the driver sources available via GitLab.

The issue at hand though is that these kernel drivers marked as GPLv3+ and that conflicts with the upstream Linux kernel code licensed as GPLv2. There was a commit to change the driver license from GPLv3 to GPL(v2) but was reverted by TUXEDO Computers on the basis of "until the legal stuff is sorted out."

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago (5 children)

why would they use the gplv3 in the first place? didn't they know it's incompatible with v2?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Because the linux is explicitly only gpl2. If it was gpl2+ then gpl3 code could use it. It's a very known problem around the incompatibility of some licenses. The kernel people explicitly only want to use gpl2 and refuse changing the license because it's better for companies that want to use linux without giving back the code.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago

did you understand my question?

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