Re: broadcom proposed firmware licence, please comment ...
On 5/25/05, Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr> wrote:
> It would then follow that you need to specify an appropriate licence for
> distribution of the non-free firmware blob, which was ok i believe in the
> original proposal :
>
> Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware data
> in hexadecimal or equivalent format, provided this copyright notice is
> accompanying it.
I agree with your implicit conclusion that the "firmware data" fig
leaf doesn't save us from DFSG #2. Also, that permission doesn't
explicitly permit (and therefore, under most implementations of
copyright law, forbids) the creation of "derived works" as in DFSG #3.
That puts it in non-free post-Sarge, but it is at least clearly
(IANAL) legal to redistribute in the context of the Linux kernel. It
also makes it clear that someone with different ideas about
"engineering practicality" can pull the firmware out of the driver in
the future and distribute it under separate cover with well-understood
license conditions.
> So, is the added verbosity really needed ? From who does it cover us ? Does it
> really cover us or broadcom/qlogic/whoever from some random kernel developer
> deciding he doesn't agree with the above interpretation and deciding to go
> sue-happy ?
As I understand the applicable law (IANAL), it clarifies the status of
the firmware blob as a separate work of authorship and hence not
within the scope of the GPL on the kernel. It addresses the
likelihood that someone with an axe to grind (a Broadcom competitor,
maybe, or a radical-minded non-trivial contributor to the kernel, or
maybe even the FSF) will sue somebody (Debian, Linus, the OSDL,
whomever) to enjoin distribution of kernels with firmware blobs in
them, on the grounds that they violate the GPL's prohibition on
creating and distributing "works based on the Program" without an
offer of complete source code.
If you have waded into debian-legal lately, you will have seen that
the GPL's definition of "work based on the Program" has undergone some
scrutiny. Opinions differ, but I think the above construction may
strengthen a defendant's stance that the firmware blob is not part of
a "work based on the Program" where the Program is the Linux kernel.
Clarity is good.
(I want to see Free firmware someday too -- obtained by persuasion or
legitimate reverse engineering, not extra-judicial strong-arm
tactics.)
Cheers,
- Michael
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