Re: The bigger issue is badly licensed blobs (was Re: Firmware poll
Hello,
On Wed, 30.08.2006 at 09:27:21 +0200, Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> wrote:
> On Aug 30, Nathanael Nerode <neroden@fastmail.fm> wrote:
> > Debian must decide whether it wants to ship BLOBs with licensing which
> > technically does not permit redistribution. At least 53 blobs have this
> > problem. Many of them are licensed under the GPL, but without source code
> > provided. Since the GPL only grants permission to distribute if you
> > provide source code, the GPL grants no permission to distribute in these
> > cases.
> Many people disagree with this interpretation.
I'm not a lawyer, but my take on this is that if someone ships you a
BLOB under the GPL, you have the legal right to demand sources from
him. So, in other words, I think Debian (or SPI? or FSF?) *could* make
a real hurricane in the press (and courts) by trying to wrestle source
code from said vendors. If that'd be good or bad for Debian, I don't
know, but it will be very expensive and time consuming.
Best,
--Toni++
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