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Re: please release sarge instead of removing binary firmware



On Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 04:23:23PM +0200, Marco d'Itri wrote:
> Really? I will quote from [...]:

You might like to note that that article was from 2002, and was the
first time the issue was raised in a serious fashion, ttbomk. Further
discussion resulted in further activites, such as the the other thread
from 2003 [0], and the patches to the hotplug infrastructure to support
loading firmware from userspace.

> > If folks believe the above legal reasoning is implausible or incorrect,
> > the easiest way to convince me otherwise is to get Eben Moglen or someone
> > similar who both knows the law, and understands the GPL to say otherwise.
> I'd say that the burden of proof lies on you.

I'm afraid that I'm the one who gets to adjudicate the proofs, not the
one who has to offer them. If you're not happy with the decision you
may either convince the technical committee to overrule it, or propose a
general resolution to overrule both of myself and the technical committee.

I'll note, however, that you _did_ ask for a decision.

Considering that this isn't simply a matter of an internal Debian policy,
but rather one of risking non-compliance with the GPL and the stated
opinions of some of the authors of those works, I don't believe that
either of those courses of action would be a good idea. Though, again, if
someone competent in GPL interpretation wishes to comment, that's great.

There are a list of under a dozen drivers that need to be fixed, and
infrastructure in the kernel to make those fixes. I don't see much point
in discussing this rather than just fixing what can be fixed.

Cheers,
aj

[0] ``Na.. firmware stuff needs sorting out, but from the conversations
    I've seem so far that involved people with a knowledge of law thats
    by putting the firmware out of the kernel entirely'' 
        -- Alan Cox, 2003-05-06
           http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0305.0/1267.html

    ``One objecting developer is enough for a lawsuit. If a court find
    copyright infringement and that developer registered the copyright
    (a form TX from the copyright office and a $35 registration fee, if
    memory serves), then I believe statutory damages would be something
    like $750-30k per copy (see [...]). Theoretically, there might be
    the potential for criminal prosecution of for-profit distributors
    (see [...]).''
        -- Adam Richter, 2003-05-07
           http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0305.0/1558.html

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj@humbug.org.au> <http://azure.humbug.org.au/~aj/>
Don't assume I speak for anyone but myself. GPG signed mail preferred.

Protect Open Source in Australia from over-reaching changes to IP law
http://www.petitiononline.com/auftaip/ & http://www.linux.org.au/fta/

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