On Dec 19, 2006, "D. Hazelton" <dhazelton@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:---
> However I have a feeling that the lawyers in the employ of the
> companies that ship BLOB drivers say that all they need to do to
> comply with the GPL is to ship the glue-code in source form.
> And I have to admit that this does seem to comply with the GPL - to the
> letter, if not the spirit.
I don't see that it does comply even with the letter. Consider this:
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If
identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program,
and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in
themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you
distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work
based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the
terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend
to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of
who wrote it.
The work, in this case, is the GPLed glue code, in source form, and
the binary blob, without sources. See that, even though the binary
blob is an independent and separate work in itself, and so it can
indeed be distributed separaly under a different license, when it's
distributed as part of a whole, then the whole must be on the terms of
the GPL.
...---
Let's assume they're not intentionally violating the GPL, but rather
that they believe they're entitled to do what they're doing, i.e.,
that they believe (a) their glue code is not a derived work from
Linux.
In this case, they *can* distribute the glue source code under the GPL
along with their binary blob. But can anyone else?
Methinks anyone else would be entitled to pass the same whole along
under the GPL, per section 1, but wouldn't be entitled to distribute
modified versions, because this would require the derived work to be
licensed under the GPL, and nobody else is able to provide the source
code to the binary blob.
...---
Well... Not quite. For one, even if enabling others to distribute
glue code + binary blobs were a good thing, using somebody else's glue
code means you're bound by the GPL requirements, so you can't ship the
combination of the glue code with your binary blob.
...---
So, even if condoning binary blobs were morally acceptable, we still
wouldn't be gaining anything from this relationship, we'd only be
enabling vendors to sell us their undocumented hardware while denying
us our freedoms.
Why should we do this?