Re: GPLed firmware flasher ...

[Michael Below <mbelow@antithese.de>]

Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> writes:
> My understanding of this is that neither the firmware constitute a derived
> work from the flasher, nor the flasher constitute a derived work of the
> firmware. The fact that they are individually packaged in the same elf binary
> does not constitute a linking act, nor a derivation/modification act, but mere
> aggregation, and is thus not a problem for the GPL.

I think the opposite is right :) 

To the user, this doesn't appear as two separate works. He/she/it will
see one program with pre-loaded data. If you are using already
existing, copyrighted data (the firmware), this means you are building
your work on top of the data. This is a derived work, I'd say (this
doesn't imply anything to the weight of your work).

I think it is misleading if you think about the firmware as a program,
which indeed doesn't communicate with the flasher. As far as I
understand, the firmware that is being flashed doesn't run during
operation of the flasher. I.e. it is being treated as data. And this
data isn't treated "at arm's length", it is permanently incorporated
into the executable.

So I'd say you should either build the flasher in a more general,
"arm's length" way (one flasher executable, potentially different data
files). Or you should consider using the LGPL. It doesn't fit exactly,
but it should come closer to what you want.

Michael Below