Re: Bug#239952: kernel-source-2.6.4: qla2xxx contains non-free firmware
On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 02:21:17AM -0800, Don Armstrong wrote:
>
> [I know the FSF's interpretation of the GPL on this issue is fairly
> clear, but I'm not aware of a cogent set of analysis on this issue by
> Linus or any of the other major kernel developers.]
Linus's view is presented in http://lkml.org/lkml/2003/12/10/131:
: And I think this argument is _especially_ strong for things like firmware
: etc, and I've been on record as saying that I think it's ok to upload
: standard firmware for a driver as long as you don't call it directly
: (ie it really lives on the hardware itself).
Of course this is not a legal opinion and he is only one of the copyright
holders.
On the other hand, none of the major commercial distributions have
identified distributing binary firmware with GPLed drivers as a legal
issue that is important enough for them to stop doing so. If there
were to be a court case, they would be much more vulnerable than the SPI.
--
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Email: Herbert Xu ~{PmV>HI~} <herbert@gondor.apana.org.au>
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