Re: Bug#239952: kernel-source-2.6.4: qla2xxx contains non-free firmware
Chris Cheney wrote:
> On Fri, Mar 26, 2004 at 03:21:31PM -0500, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
>> Chris Cheney wrote:
>>
>> > On Thu, Mar 25, 2004 at 07:41:07PM -0600, Chris Cheney wrote:
>> >> On Fri, Mar 26, 2004 at 12:01:14AM +0000, Andrew Suffield wrote:
>> >> -snip-
>> >> > Sophistry. It's clearly the form you "preferred" when you were
>> >> > writing it. The GPL does not require that programs be well-written,
>> >> > it merely requires a level playing field.
>> >>
>> >> So binary firmware is ok as long as it was not the vendor that wrote
>> >> the driver? Wow isn't that ingenious. :P
>> >
>> > Actually a reverse engineered driver with blobs in it is probably
>> Was it reverse-engineered using a "Chinese Wall" system, under which the
>> people writing the driver *never saw* the proprietary driver? :-) If
>> so,
>> you're OK. Otherwise.....
>
> It was done via usb sniffing, not sure if that qualifies or not. No
If the sniffing was done *while* the proprietary driver was running, that
doesn't qualify. If it was done with no driver and was just sniffing the
signals the hardware put out, it does.
> decompilation of the driver itself was done by me (others may have
> later).
>
>> > illegal since it is reproducing copyrighted code, I forgot to mention
>> > that earlier. :)
>> Yes, if the blobs are
>> (1) large and creative enough to be copyrightable
>> (2) not covered under 'fair use'
>>
>> > BTW - I know of at least one other driver in the linux kernels like
>> > that, the one I wrote: kernel/drivers/usb/media/vicam.ko
>> If you actually extracted those setup4[] bytes from a proprietary binary
>> driver, then the vicam.c driver is probably completely undistributable,
>> yes. :-P
If it was sniffed on the wire and it was a sequence of packets being sent by
the proprietary driver, it's likely to be covered by the proprietary
driver's copyright, and not legally safe to distribute without
permission. :-(
> Regardless of where the blob came from it still wouldn't be the
> preferred form, correct? ;)
Have you tried editing it and seeing what results you get? Maybe it's fun
and easy. ;-)
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