RE: Copyright infringement in linux/drivers/usb/serial/keyspan*fw.h
>> i wonder if it would be worth speaking with the people from keyspan/etc. and
>> explaining the problem to them? who knows - an appropriately worded message
>> (or 10) would probably convince them to release it under a less restrictive
>> license. the code itself isn't very useful is it? then again it's binary
>> only, isn't it.
>I'm all for settling this peaceably, but Adam's description makes it
>seem like that's not going to happen.
Hey, wait a minute. I didn't say keyspan was being difficult.
I don't think their aware of the objections.
Linus apparently told the person who maintains the keyspan
drivers that #include'ing GPL'ed firmware is allowed under the GPL.
I think Linus is dead wrong on that legal question, but, even if
Linus were right about the legality, this code should not be included
in the kernel tars, even if they unpack into completely separate files,
because that interferes with distributions that want to segregate or
avoid unfree software. They cannot include a complete official release
of Linux (at least not in their "free" section).
Greg Kroah-Hartman, the Linux USB serial maintainer has
already said that he is happy to put the change into 2.5 (moving
the firmware uploading to a userland utility automatically called
by the hotplug utility, per my patch and user level programs in
ftp://ftp.yggdrasil.com/pub/dist/device_control/ezusb/). He likes
the patch. He just needs to be convinced to tell Linus to put
it into 2.4, and then this problem reduces theoretically to the
FTP mirrors that want to be careful avoiding the tainted kernel
releases.
Freeing the keyspan firmware would be nice too, of course,
but it's not a requirement for solving this problem.
Adam J. Richter __ ______________ 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 104
adam@yggdrasil.com \ / San Jose, California 95129-1034
+1 408 261-6630 | g g d r a s i l United States of America
fax +1 408 261-6631 "Free Software For The Rest Of Us."
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