Filip Van Raemdonck wrote:
> On Wed, May 07, 2003 at 10:54:33AM +0100, Simon Kelley wrote:
>
>>Now Linus could say "I consider that the kernel copyright holders
>>did/didn't give permission to combine their work with firmware blobs"
>>and I contend that practically all the copyright holders would go along
>>with that judgement, just as they went along with Linus's judgement
>>about linking binary-only modules with their work.
>
>
> It's been pointed out repeatedly that there are a few which disagree with
> this; they just did not feel compelled (yet?) into action over it.
>
> But there is an important difference in binary modules vs binary
> firmware blobs.
>
> In the modules case, it's the binary modules provider which exposes
> himself to legal issues.
> In the firmware case, you are exposing the kernel itself to IP liability
> issues. Do you really want that? (Think SCO)
>
For the avoidance of doubt and in the particular case of the Atmel
drivers which started this discussion, I have absolutely _no_ intention
of exposing the kernel to outside IP liability issues. I have already
contacted Atmel and I am talking to them about changing their licence to
explicily allow redistribution as part of Linux; if
I do not get a satifactory outcome from the those discussions I will
not include firmware with the driver.
I don't however anticipate getting Atmel to release the _source_ to
their firmware so this still leaves the issue of the source-distribution
clause in the GPL and if it applies in this case. The consequences of
making a wrong call on that are to violate the GPL license conditions of
each contribution to the kernel and therefore the copyright of each
copyright holder on a portion of the Linux kernel.
Briefly, the arguments that binary firmware which is copied into the
hardware by the kernel is OK are these.
1) The GPL is unclear on this point.
2) The firmware is not linked with the kernel code and not executed
by the same processor as the kernel.
3) Not allowing binary firmware leads to technical decisions which would
not be made in the absence of prohibition.
4) The same hardware and firmware is unambiguously OK if the firmware
is held in flash rather than initialised by the host.
5) There are current examples in the kernel of drivers with source-free
binary firmware blobs going back at least to version 1.3. This means
that someone might have considered this before and OKed it. It also
means that anyone who added code to the kernel since 1.3 had
evidence that for Linux the interpration of this GPL grey area
was to allow binary firmware. It is difficult to a contributor to
turn around now and claim copyright infrigement by distributing their
work with binary firmware when the kernel already had binary firmware
in it when their contribution was first made.
6) AFAIK nobody has claimed that the existing firmware blobs in Linux
violate their copyright on GPL-licensed kernel contributions and
fairly certainly nobody has pressed this in law. (Since if they
had it would be well-known.)
The arguments against allowing binary firmware are these.
1) The GPL is unclear on this point.
2) The intention of the GPL is to allow redistribution only
with source.
3) Some contributors to the kernel might want their work distributed
only with all source, including firmware source. These people
would contend that their copyright had been violated and would
feel aggrieved or sue for lots of money.
Anybody want to write a better summary?
Simon.
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu May 15 2003 - 22:00:27 EST