On Friday 04 April 2008, Leo Mauler wrote:
The paragraph immediately following your quote was rather enlightening (emphasis mine):
"Now **no lawyer will ever come out in public and say this, as lawyer really aren't allowed to make public statements like this at all**. But **if you hire one**, and talk to them in the client/lawyer setting, they will advise you of this issue."
I am not convinced by an argument that stipulates that the people who told Greg that "kernel modules are illegal" will NEVER VERIFY THIS AS TRUE unless you pay them lots of money to tell you the same thing, and even then they can't legally discuss in public what you've talked about in private.
In case you never noticed, nobody will ever give free legal advice on the record. Probably for fear of being held liable if they end up wrong and having had no profit from the statement. But there is nothing GPL-specific or even copyright-specific to lack of public legal statements.