"For those of you who haven't seen it, some of the Linux Kernel developers have issued a statement on the use of closed source drivers in conjunction with the kernel (summary--it's a Bad ThingTM). My suggestion on this is that the interface for drivers should prohibit non-GPL drivers unless the driver's author positively asserts that the driver is not a derivative work.
"This announcement has triggered off some discussions in mailing lists about how to determine whether or not something is a derivative work of the kernel. Someone mentioned that derivative works should be functionally based, citing Linus Torvalds here. I intended to chime in saying that the Australian High Court had actually said something like that some time ago, but then the short email got out of hand. So now I've done a blog post..."
