Re: How long is it acceptable to leave *undistributable* files in the kernel package?
Joe Wreschnig writes:
> On Wed, 2004-06-16 at 17:18, Michael Poole wrote:
>> A little Google shows that Yggdrasil has made such an argument:
>> http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/04/msg00130.html
>>
>> 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.
>
> I think it's fair to say he was misled by repeated statements that Linux
> was under the GPL, e.g. from README:
>
> It is distributed under the GNU General Public License - see the
> accompanying COPYING file for more details.
>
> Given the huge amount of code in Linux, it's very possible he didn't
> even see any of the non-GPLd code at first, and I would consider it
> totally reasonable to trust the README of a program at the outset.
You, sir, beg the question. If you wish to argue in a non-circular
manner, please do so at any time. Do not expect the rest of us to
take your word that X is true simply because you claim X.
(I expect you will need a definition for X: it is the claim that
including firmware blobs in the kernel is a violation of the GPL.)
Michael Poole
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