Widespread Linux Practice May Violate License; Study Addresses ...

This article just reeks of misunderstanding of the GPL, the Linux kernel, and the FSF. The current method of loading binary only modules has been determined to be GPL compatible by the people who know the kernel code best, the developers.

I did get a kick out of the line that claimed the FSF had some kind of incentive to ignore this "violation" because they want to help Linux succeed...lol

Wow, that's a real blunder tmcnet made here. I would not even had accepted that article for lxer. 1.) The article is dated Febrary 22nd this year, but the whitepaper at wasabi's has been around for much longer. I've read the original paper some time around last year iirc. How can they possibly claim the whitepaper was published yesterday? Well, newsforge just made the same mistake a couple of days ago... 2.) The whitepaper at wasabi's isn't very good, not to mention that wasabi has an interest in dissing its competitors. It gets some things right, but it gets other things wrong and simply tries to discourage others to use GNU/Linux for embedded systems. They argue along the "all others do it wrong, we're the only one who do it right" line. Not what we want, is it? 3.) FSF? What's the FSF to do with the Linux kernel? How does the writer at tmcnet get this silly idea about the FSF being able to enforce the kernel's license? They cannot, only the copyright holders can, and the FSF hasn't got the copyright for the Linux kernel!

Only one point is actually true to some degree: Most binary-only kernel modules out there probably DO violate the license. However, this seems to be tolerated to some degree by the copyright holders....

Isn't it amazing how articles that try to make people worry about Linux in embedded platforms appear at the same time Microsoft is making its next big push in the mobile phone market?

Kind of like how frivoulous lawsuits against RIM materialize in time for Microsoft to announce its entry into that market.

The world is just so full of amazing coincidences, that I may actually have to start considering the validity of Intelligent Design (or in this case, Intelligent Decline)!