Uwe Hermann wrote:
On Sun, Jul 29, 2007 at 03:16:00PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
- Rasmus Wiman rasmus@wiman.org [070729 14:49]:
Just curious... How about software that runs "on top of" Linuxbios? I assume that Microsoft won't have to release Windows under GPL just because Linuxbios can boot it :)
Correct. Just booting an OS using LinuxBIOS doesn't require that OS to be GPL'd, of course (same for Linux - running an applications on Linux doesn't make that application GPL'd).
, but what about payloads? If someone
wants to create a completely closed-source payload for LinuxBIOS, would theybe allowed to do that? One possible example could be Microsoft. Suppose that LinuxBIOS really took off and Microsoft would want to adapt NTLDR so it could be a payload, would they be allowed to do it?
The payload is "loaded" from an "archive" or "filesystem" by LinuxBIOS and thus does not have to be released under GPL because it is used with LinuxBIOS.
Ack.
Uwe.
This is a great conversation. These questions and answers should go into the FAQ. Marc