On Sun, 2011-06-05 at 10:29 +0100, David Woodhouse wrote: > On Sun, 5 Jun 2011, Ben Hutchings wrote: > > > This firmware has a very problematic licence. It actually forbids > > anyone to download the firmware without agreeing to the licence. We > > have no way to ask users whether they agree to this before even > > downloading the package. > > "Do not download this unless you intend to comply with its licence" is > fairly much implicit in *anything* we distribute, isn't it? You only have > permission to copy GPL software *if* you comply with its licence. In reality every transfer over a network involves many transient copies being made. However, I think that legally only the sender tends to be held responsible for distributing or copying. If the licence forbids downloading the firmware in certain circumstances and if we assume that that is a valid term, then it seems to be the responsibility of the sender to ensure that the recipient is aware of and agrees to it before they download the firmware itself. You don't do that. And we don't have a mechanism for it. > > David, I'm rather surprised you accepted firmware into linux-firmware > > with these terms, as it seems to mean that anyone cloning the repository > > is expected to accept them. > > I *do* expect anyone cloning the repository to comply with the indivual > licences for the components therein. But you also allow anyone to clone it before seeing the licence terms that may disallow that. So far as I know, none of the other licence texts claim to restrict recipients that don't use or redistribute the firmware. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.
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