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Bug#243022: marked as done (ymfpci_image.h: Sourceless microcode without permission to redistribute)

Your message dated Thu, 15 May 2008 16:44:56 +0200
with message-id <20080515144456.GA20661@stro.at>
and subject line Re: drivers containing firmware blobs
has caused the Debian Bug report #242866,
regarding ymfpci_image.h: Sourceless microcode without permission to redistribute
to be marked as done.

This means that you claim that the problem has been dealt with.
If this is not the case it is now your responsibility to reopen the
Bug report if necessary, and/or fix the problem forthwith.

(NB: If you are a system administrator and have no idea what this
message is talking about, this may indicate a serious mail system
misconfiguration somewhere. Please contact owner@bugs.debian.org
immediately.)


-- 
242866: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=242866
Debian Bug Tracking System
Contact owner@bugs.debian.org with problems
--- Begin Message --- 
Package: kernel
Severity: serious
Justification: Policy 2.2.1

The files
* sound/oss/ymfpci_image.h
* sound/pci/ymfpci/ymfpci_image.h
(which are bascially identical)
consist of sourceless microcode, with no copyright statement or permission
to distribute.  These are probably undistributable.

This probably means that the whole ymfpci driver (both versions) is unusable,
since the driver appears to reinstall the image even after a temporary
suspend/resume-type power-down.  :-P

(The alternative, as usual, is to rewrite it to use userland loading, but I
have absolutely no idea how to write such a thing.)

--- End Message ---
--- Begin Message --- 
Version: 2.6.24-1


The Debian Kernel Team is guilty of uploading a disjointed kernel. For the
record Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> coded the infrastructure for the
stripping and the stripping itself. The FTP masters threatened to block
any future Linux uploads or alternatively would launch an NMU (non
maintainer upload) stripping the affected drivers.

I very strongly disagreed with that decision, but the Debian Developer
made their position clear in the General Resolution 2006-007, which is
binding for us. In the long run it might be a win for Free Software -
history will tell. In the short term this is an annoyance for existing
hardware driver support.

As expected none of the vocal minority, aka Mr. Nerode and Mr. Doolittle,
demanding DFSG freeness helped to work out this transition nor to cleanup
the created mess. The stripping presents an additional maintenance burden.
But I'm sick of the arguments. Rather then fighting I'd like to see people
working together to make things work, both on the licensing side
(BSD firmware) and on the code side (firmware_request()), neither is easy.

I'm thus closing the bug reports regarding firmware blobs and pointing the
reporters to the following wiki page in order to finaly help a bit
-> http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing
Possible DFSG violations in current and future linux-2.6 uploads should be
filed seperately.


kthxbye

-- 
maks

--- End Message ---
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