The current text at <http://wiki.debian.org/KernelFirmwareLicensing> is: > Debian kernel team identifies the following three types of firmware, currently > found in the Linux kernel: > 1. Sourceless binary blobs with no license, no explicit permission to redistribute, or > an explicit prohibition to redistribute. > This category currently includes the emi62, keyspan, smctr, > cops, emi26, and 3c359 drivers. Removal of these drivers will have minimal > impact on the users, as they are believed to be unpopular and not likely to > be required during the installation. > 2. Sourceless binary blobs distributed under GPL. > This situation has been interpreted as a violation of the terms of GPL, which > requires the distribution to be accompanied by the source code. Removal of > firmware in this category will cause effective removal of a large number of > important drivers, resulting in a severe negative impact on our users. > 3. Binary blobs violating DFSG for other reasons. > This category includes firmware which contains obfuscated source, or is not > allowed to be modified. While less numerous than category 2, removal of > drivers in this category will also have a significant negative > impact on our users. > It has been agreed within Debian kernel team, that the firmware in category 1 > is not acceptable in Debian. It is the intention of the kernel team to prune the > affected drivers from the upstream tarball. > While we continuosly strive to improve the situation with DFSG-compliance of kernel > packages, and there has been progress on it since Sarge release, we recognize that > fixing all the problems with drivers falling into categories 2 and 3 is not feasible > in the etch release time frame. Alternative solutions, like removal of the affected > drivers would have a severe negative impact on our users, and would be detrimentary > to the Debian's goal of advancement of free software. Therefore, we propose to accept > the drivers from categories 2 and 3 in the kernel packages for etch, given that an > agreement can be achieved with release and ftp-master teams, or the issue is > resolved by way of General Resolution. This is clearly outdated in its reference to etch and lack of reference to the current approach using firmware loader and firmware-nonfree. I propose a new statement along these lines: The Debian kernel team identifies the following three types of firmware, currently found in the Linux kernel: 1. Sourceless binary blobs with no license, no explicit permission to redistribute, or an explicit prohibition to redistribute. This category currently includes the emi62, keyspan, smctr, cops, emi26, and 3c359 drivers. Removal of these drivers will have minimal impact on users, as they are believed to be unpopular and not likely to be required during installation. 2. Sourceless binary blobs distributed under GPL. This situation has been interpreted as a violation of the terms of GPL, which requires the distribution to be accompanied by the source code. This affects several important drivers. 3. Binary blobs violating DFSG for other reasons. This category includes firmware which contains obfuscated source, or is not allowed to be modified. It is the intention of the kernel team to: a. Request relicensing of blobs in category 2 b. Patch drivers in categories 2 and 3 to load separate firmware c. Prune the blobs from the upstream tarball d. Disable affected drivers in category 1, and in category 2 where relicensing is impossible Ben.
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