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As an extension of the October trustees meeting, the Ten team enquired |
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about license usage for including firmware and binary-source material on |
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the media they were producing. |
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|
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The items they wanted were fine, but I realize that it's a more general |
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issue, that is solved well by GLEP23. |
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|
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I'd like to propose the addition of a new license group, |
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BINARY-REDISTRIBUTABLE, to include all licenses that are either totally |
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clear in permitting redistribution (the FSF, GPL, OSI groups) as well as |
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all licenses that are closed but contain language explicitly permitting |
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binary redistribution. |
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|
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Anybody wishing to select packages for building packages and/or media to |
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redistribute then simply needs to pick the license group, and enable |
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USE=bindist. |
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|
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Each license in the group must fit the following requirements: |
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- MUST permit redistribution in binary form. |
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- MUST NOT require explicit approval (No items from @EULA) |
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- MUST NOT restrict the cost of redistribution. |
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- MAY require explicit inclusion of the license with |
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the distribution [1] |
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- IFF there is an explicit inclusion requirement, USE=bindist |
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MUST cause a copy of the license to be installed in a file |
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location compliant with the license, |
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|
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A partial initial contents: |
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--------------------------- |
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@FSF-APPROVED |
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@GPL-COMPATIBLE |
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@OSI-APPROVED |
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NVIDIA |
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qlogic-fibre-channel-firmware |
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intel-psb |
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Intel |
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atheros-hal |
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adobe-ps |
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ipw2100-fw |
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ipw2200-fw |
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ralink-firmware |
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Adaptec |
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|
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Footnotes: |
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---------- |
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1. On licenses that require inclusion of the license with the |
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distribution: |
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Some licenses contain language that explicitly requires that the license |
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always be present with whatever distribution of the binary content. |
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The qlogic-fibre-channel-firmware license, used for |
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sys-block/qla-fc-firmware is a good example of this. |
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|
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Going a long way back, upstream did not permit redistribution at all, |
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which posed problems for distributing initramfs environments that |
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contained the firmware to using this hardware. |
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|
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Simply relying on the existence of /usr/portage/ was not suitable, |
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because CD isos do not contain /usr/portage/ at all. The reasonable |
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solution at the time was installing a copy of the license to the docdir, |
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so that it would always be present (in any binpkg, as well as any |
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system/image with the package). |
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|
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Additionally, a couple of the licenses go a step further, and contain |
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language like the following: |
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"Your rights to redistribute the Software shall be contingent upon your |
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installation of this Agreement in its entirety in the same directory as |
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the Software" |
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(From ipw2100-fw) |
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|
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While we don't install a copy of the license for most free software to |
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save space, we SHOULD endeavour to install a copy of these more |
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restrictive licenses so that we are always in compliance with them. |
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I don't like having to install blocks of text to my / partition |
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(/lib/firmware/ for firmware), but I see no alternative if we wish to |
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distribute the software. |
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|
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-- |
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Robin Hugh Johnson |
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Gentoo Linux: Developer, Trustee & Infrastructure Lead |
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E-Mail : robbat2@g.o |
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GnuPG FP : 11AC BA4F 4778 E3F6 E4ED F38E B27B 944E 3488 4E85 |
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