Gentoo Archives: gentoo-dev

From: Vincent Launchbury <vincent@×××××××××××××××.com>
To: gentoo-dev@l.g.o
Subject: Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 2009 02:43:27
Message-Id: 4B3ABDFE.9050209@doublecreations.com
In Reply to: Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo by Greg KH
1 Greg KH wrote:
2 > The fact that some people claim that the firmware blobs somehow violate
3 > the GPLv2 license of the kernel is a claim, not a fact, so please do not
4 > state it as such.
5
6 Hi Greg,
7
8 Thanks for your reply.
9
10 I think you misunderstood my point though. I wasn't saying that the
11 firmware violates the GPL, I have no idea whether it does or not. I was
12 saying that some of the firmware is non-free software, and therefore the
13 license should include more than just GPL-2. This especially effects
14 people using ACCEPT_LICENSE to maintain a free system.
15
16 > Also note that the majority of these firmware blobs are now removed
17 > from the kernel, and are in a separate patckage, so this might be
18 > totally irrelevant at this point in time.
19
20 This may be true, but the packages in the main tree still contain
21 non-free firmware. If this is fixed in a later release, then GPL-2 would
22 be fine for those.
23
24 > So please don't state that the Linux kernel is not properly listed as
25 > the GPLv2, because it is.
26
27 In linux-2.6.31 for example, here are some excerpts from
28 firmware/WHENCE:
29
30 Regarding the keyspan USB driver:
31 This firmware may not be modified and may only be used with
32 Keyspan hardware.
33
34 and the emi26 driver:
35 This firmware may not be modified and may only be used with the
36 Emagic EMI 2|6 Audio Interface.
37
38 I'm not sure if this git repo is part of a separate package or not, but
39 it seems the same terms are present:
40 http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git;a=blob;f=WHENCE;h=83d245bee1ec44cbd5c0e1a53a3989c57f675c91;hb=f20b0674534a444ae74239843cac19f72c64912b
41
42 Which is why I think the license should be amended. If I'm mistaken,
43 please do correct me, but based on my above notes, I believe it should
44 be updated.
45
46 Thanks,
47 Vincent.

Replies

Subject Author
Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo Greg KH <gregkh@g.o>