Re: How long is it acceptable to leave *undistributable* files in the kernel package?
On Thu, 2004-06-17 at 13:31, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> > Unfortunately for Mr. Richter, Linux does not seem to contain any
> > copyright notices attributable to him or Yggdrasil before 2000. As I
> > cited elsewhere, this is at least FOUR YEARS after firmware was
> > included in the kernel, so he cannot fairly claim infringement. He
> > should have known that binary firmware existed in the kernel before.
>
> Nonsense. He made his code available to others under the GPL. Those
> others (Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox, Red Hat, etc) made a work derived
> from his work and that of others and distributed it. They violated
> the license they had from him when they did so.
Unless someone else put it into the kernel without asking him (was that
the case?), he gave it to them under the GPL with a request to include
it in the kernel as it then was. That creates an implied permission to
do so, since otherwise his request to have it put in the kernel would be
nonsensical.
Oliver Elphick
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