Horst H. von Brand wrote: [Mon Jul 31 2006, 11:01:00AM EDT]
The nVidia (et al) folks certainly did look into the matter, and
I'd
bet their lawyers told them there was no (or just a very tiny)
chance for them doing wrong before they went ahead,
or a tiny chance of being prosecuted.
Nobody wants to take the binary module question to court, because
neither side wants to leave the interpretation of "derivative work" in
the hands of a judge. So long as the area is gray, it's possible for
both sides to claim they're right. A decision in the favor of binary
module legality would be a blow to the efforts such as Greg's, to
shame and cajole companies into releasing their drivers as open
source.
Aron