licence problem with ADSL modem drivers.
Hello, ...
I was thinking about doing a package for the Bewan ADSL PCI st modem,
but have some questions relating to the licence problems, and to how
(and if) we can distribute this package.
Bewan (www.bewan.com or www.bewan.fr) does distribute linux drivers in
source format, but without any kind of licence agreement, so i contacted
them, and after discution with them, i found out the following :
The modem is a kind of 'software' modem, having some part physical,
and some part done by software. The driver is composed of linux code
written by Bewan, and a binary only library whose licencing they do
not control, and for which STmicroelectronics does not release
sources. They are willing to rebuild for other arches than just ia32
though. This may well change in the future though, but for now it is
like that.
Bewan is quite willing to licence their code under the GPL or any other
licence agreable to us, but i guess the presence of the binary only lib
would make this unsuitable for either incorporation in the linux kernel,
or distribution as part of the debian archive.
So, what is the best way of distributing this ?
Should it be distributed from a non debian site (possibly bewan's) ?
Should it be possible to build the package without this binary library,
and have it be downloaded and/or linked during the installation phase
and still go into contrib ?
Is it even imagineable that such a driver enters the official linux
tree, and use a not GPLed library or something such ?
Does it even make sense to support this kind of drivers, or let it be
and buy USB modems, like the alcatel speed touch, for which support
entered the official 2.5.32 kernel recently ?
Ok, these are many questions, i hope you can answer me some.
(Please CC me, since i am not subscribed to the list)
Friendly,
Sven Luther
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