On Tue, Apr 13, 2004 at 10:07:43PM +0200, Jos? Luis Tall?n wrote: > Sorry, i know i'm about to get flamed probably but.... > - Upstream authors have put their drivers in Linux, under the GPL > - The preferred distribution form of several of such BLOBs is really binary > (we are speaking of machine code, nonetheless) What matters is the preferred form of modification. The preferred form of distribution of programs is often compiled code even for non firmware things -- see the contents of most .debs, eg -- but it'd be a GPL violation if we did that for GPLed code without also making the source code available. > - Everybody else is using them The same notion applied to KDE and to a range of GPLed apps that use(d) the OpenSSL libraries. That's nice, and it's great that the community in general is amicable enough to let lapses like this slide rather than constantly enforcing their rights in court, but it's not something we let slide, either historically or currently. > ...so, are we really infringing the GPL? Hrm. I guess in a climate where SCO is possible, it'd probably be a bad idea to give an unqualified "yes" to that. Hrm. Given the lack of complaints to upstream or clear claims by upstream Linux hackers that this is definitely inappropriate, in spite of it being a well known issue that has been brought to the awareness of upstream authors in a variety of ways, I invoke the magic of estoppel to support my belief that our distribution of the kernel is legal and doesn't violate the rights, moral or otherwise, of the linux-kernel authors. That said, I don't think we should be relying on the good will of the upstream maintainers forever, and I think we should continue our policy of ensuring that we do follow the letter of the GPL, even when that's not the easy course of action. > If that is the case, it really belongs in Upstream to get these problems > sorted. We should probably just offer as much help as possible.... In the end, every problem in every piece of software needs to get resolved by upstream. That doesn't remove our responsibility from fixing the problem ourselves in the meantime. > ... and try to get Sarge released ! :) And rhetorical flourishes don't change that. > I don't know if debian-legal have been consulted (have they?), but i > certainly think it is them who are most capable of properly addressing this > issue. debian-legal is a mailing list, not a law firm. It's neither the final authority on what's legally acceptable within Debian, nor does it have reliable procedures to ensure correct and reliable conclusions are drawn on questions about the law. It's a good place to go for advice on its subject matter and for explanations on policies that've been around a while, just as -devel or linux-kernel are, but that doesn't make the advice any more reliable or binding than what you see on -devel or linux-kernel. That said, debian-legal has discussed the firmware issue repeatedly, since at least 2001 [0], and we've had a loose policy of removing drivers with these problems for a while [1] too. Given this issue has been thought about for years, the hotplug infrastructure's able to handle it, and there are plenty of people worked up enough about this issue to complain on both sides, I can't see any reason to continue being indifferent to the license violation here. Though, again, I'm happy to be advised by competent legal experts that there isn't, in fact, a problem. I'm not sure that should or would change our long term plan of action: moving firmware into userspace seems the best way of complying with our social contract, and it seems unlikely that upstream will take much interest if we don't; but it would mean that the choice about making it a release critical issue would be one of policy, rather than legal obligation. Cheers, aj [0] http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/debian-legal-200104/msg00130.html [1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/debian-devel-200403/msg01664.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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