Re: DRAFT for a GR proposal concerning the Sarge release
Glenn Maynard wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 08:04:13AM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
>
>>Has anyone asked Linus what his feelings are regarding firmware? If he
>>thinks it's acceptable (or possibly even the 'preferred form of
>>modification') to have in Linux and that it's not violating the GPL then
>>I don't think we have a problem. In these cases of ambiguity it makes
>>sense to me to ask the copyright holder to clarify for us instead of
>>assuming that they're violating their own license.
>
>
> I concur with the other responses: Linus is not the sole copyright holder.
>
> I'll also reiterate the other problem: even if we believe that the entire
> Linux kernel developer body agrees (which may be the case, though I doubt
> it), I'm sure there's a lot of code in the kernel pulled from other GPL
> projects, whose copyright holders aren't kernel developers at all.
At least one developer does not agree - Adam J. Richter of Yggdrasil
officially objected to binary-only firmware on the Linux kernel mailing
list in the message
http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0305.1/0157.html :
> for the record, I believe that the existing "firmware blobs"
> in Linux that do not include source infringe Yggdrasil copyrights
> on GPL-licensed kernel contributions (just as I believe they
> infringe many other authors' GPL-licensed contributions).
- Josh Triplett
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