Re: Keyspan Firmware fun
> On Fri, Apr 27, 2001 at 04:57:20PM +1000, Hugh Blemings wrote:
> > On 27-Apr-2001 Thomas Bushnell, BSG wrote:
> >
> > > I agree completely that the patch should be integrated ASAP.
> >
> > I'm sorry, I beg to differ on this for 2.4.x kernels as it's quite an major
> > change. For 2.5.x certainly, but as maintainer I won't be integrating this
> > for 2.4.x.
>
> I agree, as maintainer for the entire usb-serial kernel package, I would
> not accept this change right now unless one of the following things
> happens:
> - Linus asks me to (or just does it.)
> - a lawyer tells me to
> - Keyspan asks to remove it
Sigh. This is why Adam decided to take spend his efforts elsewhere.
Any of these events are unlikely to happen. Linus signed off on the
(obviously problematic) first one, so he probably just doesn't care.
No one is going to spend the money for a lawyer (unless the FSF can
somehow get involved in this, and many people don't trust the lawyers
from FSF anyway). And Keyspan wants their stuff widely dispersed. I
can't imagine why they would care what license their binary data is
under, as long as it waives liability.
> It's just too big of a architectural change for this to happen in a
> stable kernel series.
That is a technical objection. You don't seem to care about the legal
problems. Adam is a copyright holder in this case. He has standing
to enforce the GPL (though I doubt he'll actually send you a threat
letter). He is telling you that there is a problem with code you have
included. It is obviously incompatible, but you choose not to resolve
it.
It is carefree attitudes like this that caused the lawsuits around BSD.
Regards,
Walter Landry
landry@physics.utah.edu
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