Re: kernel firmware status
Andrew Suffield wrote:
>>>Quoth the page: "Look at the source files yourself to
>>>understand any licensing restrictions on their use.
>>>Alteon's license may be summarised like this: you may share
>>>and develop the firmware, but it is only for use with
>>>Alteon NIC products."
>
>
>That summary is obviously bogus because you can't do that in
>a license. I looked at the source files, and I did not find
>any license at all. Everything says "All rights reserved" on
>it. So I think this is just yet another entirely unlicensed
>firmware bundle - ironically, it's one which *does* include
>source written in C, so there is absolutely no chance anybody
>could argue that the hex dump is source.
>
Why do you say "you can't do that in a license?".
>>> The firmware contained herein as keyspan_*.h is
>>> ...
>>> Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of
>>> this firmware image as part of a Linux or other Open
>>> Source operating system kernel in text or binary form
>>> as required.
>>> ...
>>> This firmware may not be modified and may only be
>>> used with Keyspan hardware. Distribution and/or
>>> Modification of the keyspan.c driver which includes
>>> this firmware, in whole or in part, requires the
>>> inclusion of this statement."
>
>
>Finally, one with a real license. It's obviously non-free,
>but I see no reason why it can't be distributed in non-free,
>with the usual provisos about proprietary drivers being
>entirely unsupportable.
As I said before, it seems to me that is not distributable
/unless/ within a whole copy of the kernel; ie neither in a
kernel-modules-nonfree nor in a keyspan-module-nonfree
packages.
>A few of these are BSD-licensed binaries; those are indeed
>distributable, although of course they're proprietary.
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