MorphOS x86

[Fats]

@warpdesign

If you have a proprietary product you can't use GPL code for such integral part as CPU emulation. Unless of course you want to make everything GPL. For some that might be an option but for us it is not. If it was LGPL then it could be possible to use it in theory, but with GPL it is not.

And obviously no-one wants another CherryOS...

It's good to be careful concerning licensing but I think the GPL CPU emulation could be quite isolated from the rest. UAE is also GPL but the ROM and a lot of software running on it are closed source.

greets,
Staf.

[Fats]

That is a completely different situation. Try to take UAE itself and include it as a integral part of a proprietary system, and then tell me it can be done.

It should be able to be done but depends on how you make UAE an integral part of the whole system. Linux distros are also consisting of a lot of non-GPL code and some even of proprietary code with the GPL kernel an integral part of the system.
Of course if you don't want to open source any of the extensions added to the emulation core itself you won't be able to use GPL code.

greets,
Staf.

[Fats]

Again that is a completely different situation.

IMO it is similar enough. The linux kernel runs programs and libraries. The CPU emulation layer runs programs and libraries where code is in an alien binary format. As Linux can have an OS running on it that is fully or partly closed source the emulation layer should also be able to do that with clever engineering.
Please explain where the analogy breaks down.
In your opinion, what part of the integrated emulation would force most or whole of MorphOS to be GPLed ?

greets,
Staf.

[Fats]

"  NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
 services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
 of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
 Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
 Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
 kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it."

As UAE does not have this exception is it illegal then?
IMO this note is just a clarification that the user programs that are run on the kernel are not derivative works of the kernel.

Question we want to answer is if you can implement a GPLed emulation layer that from user point of view is integrated in the OS without infecting the whole OS with GPL.
Or to put it in GPLv2

• terms: can you make a Program that does the emulation of an alien CPU without making the OS a derivative of this emulator? Can you implement it in such a way so that this emulation layer is automatically started when a program wants to run such an alien program and still not make the OS a derivative work from the emulator?

I'm still convinced it is possible and am curious to see what roadblocks other people see.

greets,
Staf.

• I am not very familiar with the wording of GPLv3.