Re: Keyspan Firmware fun

["Adam J. Richter" <adam@yggdrasil.com>]

Greg KH <greg@kroah.com> writes:
>Hm, I understand that you have a copyright claim on the keyspan.c file,
>but I don't see how that transfers to the keyspan_usa*_fw.h files?

	I do not believe the keyspan_usa*_fw.h files are illegal by
themselves.  However, compiling them, keyspan.c and 402 other include
files generates a keyspan.o file that has content covered by many
different copyrights.

	In order to copy that keyspan.o file, generally, you need
permission from each of the copyright owners.  Many of them have given
you permission, as stated by in the contents of those files or in text
that accompanies them, such as the BSD copying conditions.  It can be
argued that Linus Torvalds, Alan Cox and perhaps others have aso given
you permission by some of their statements on this issue.  However,
the other copyright owners who put their code under the version 2 of
the GNU General Public License have not granted you this permission.
That is, the GPL does not give you permission to copy a file whose
contains further restrictions beyond the GPL, and, to the best of my
knowledge, these authors have not given you or the public at large
permission to copy the files without meeting the requirements of the
GPL.  Therefore, copying the resulting keyspan.o files infringes the
copyrights owned by the authors of any other GPL'ed any content that
keyspan.o comprises, and there are many such copyright owners.

	  You might wonder why am I also concerned about distribution
of the kernel _sources_.  First of all, I believe that there may be a
contributory infringement problem with machinations (my word) where
the end result is the delivery of a work whose distribution is
forbidden by copyright.  In the case of the stock kernel, the build
process does this for the keyspan.o file.  Secondly, I think there may
be an indirect or contributory infringement issue from distributing
such kernel sources with the reasonable expectation that many
recipients will compile and unknowingly illegally copy keyspan.o
as a result.

Adam J. Richter     __     ______________   4880 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 104
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