Re: [AMENDMENT]: Release Etch now, with source-less but legal and freely licensed firmware
On Thu, Oct 05, 2006 at 04:55:48PM +1000, Anthony Towns wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 04, 2006 at 09:03:10PM -0700, Thomas Bushnell BSG wrote:
> > Anthony Towns <aj@azure.humbug.org.au> writes:
> > > I believe that distributing firmware written in chunks of hex is in
> > > compliance with the GPL, and repetition of your arguments isn't going
> > > to change that belief.
> > Do you really think that the GPL contains an exception for firmware
> > blobs? Or that the GPL doesn't mean what it says when it refers to
> > all source?
>
> I don't believe it says or means what is being claimed on its behalf, no.
> As evidence, I'll simply cite everyone else with far more to lose and
> far more legal resources that simply aren't worrying about this.
>
> I'm not going to explain my reasoning from the text though, sorry. After
> etch, when we're working on separating the stuff out properly and moving
> the hex stuff to non-free I'll be more than happy to talk GPL legal
> theory over beers, but in the meantime, I don't think the details are
> important enough to spend time on.
But if we vote, like you currently propose, that we won't distribute
non-distributable stuff, then we have to get ride of the GPLed drivers, all
40+ of them.
Will you or Steve be doing the work for it ?
Friendly,
Sven Luther
Reply to: