Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware

[Frank Küster <frank@debian.org>]

Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 03, 2006 at 02:09:50PM +0200, Frank K?ster wrote:
>> +  |     We allow inclusion into etch even if the way we distribute the
>> +  |     firmware leads to a violation of the license,
>
> Uh, no we won't.
>
> There are claims that the GPL, when applied to "sourceless" firmware,
> doesn't provide permission to redistribute because there's presumably a
> "more preferred" version of the source in existance somewhere. That's
> an *argument* that a violation may exist, not proof that one does. If
> that argument were accepted by Debian, we would not be distributing
> it no matter what GRs there might be, right up to the DFSG and Social
> Contract being entirely scrapped -- it would be *illegal* to distribute
> those works, both for us, for Red Hat, for kernel.org and just about
> everyone else.

Okay.  Since I never read anybody saying it this clearly (in other
words, contradicting Sven when he asserted that the claims were true), I
wasn't aware of that.

It seems to me as if we might need to phrase the vote in a way that also
makes clear which interpretation we follow.

>>                                                         if the current
>> +  |     license does not allow modification, or if there is no source
>> +  |     available. However, we still require that the firmware has a
>> +  |     license that, in principle, allows distribution (possibly under
>> +  |     conditions we currently cannot fully meet).
>> What do you think?

That would make, e.g.:

+  |     firmware included in the kernel itself as part of Debian Etch.
+  |     We allow inclusion into etch even if the current license does
+  |     not allow modification, or if there are hints that there exists
+  |     a form more suited for modification than the binary form
+  |     included in the kernel. However, we still require that the
+  |     firmware has a license that allows distribution.

Regards, Frank


-- 
Frank Küster
Single Molecule Spectroscopy, Protein Folding @ Inst. f. Biochemie, Univ. Zürich
Debian Developer (teTeX/TeXLive)