Such inclusion exposes Debian to legal liability, right? I ask because such a file is present in Debian's Linux kernel sources and there seems to have been no attempt to remove it, despite the upload of new versions since the bug report.
drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h: * The firmware contained herein is Copyright (c) 1999-2002 Emagic * as an unpublished work. This notice does not imply unrestricted * or public access to this firmware which is a trade secret of Emagic, * and which may not be reproduced, used, sold or transferred to * any third party without Emagic's written consent. All Rights Reserved. This is the subject of bug #242895, which was (incorrectly) merged with other bugs. (There are a large number of other "firmware" files with no explicit license from the copyright holder at all, which *also* means, under copyright law, no permission to distribute. This is the most extreme case because it explicitly states that there is no permission to distribute. :-P ) Forget, for now, the issues of DFSG-freenesss and GPL-compatibility. Is it sane for Debian to be distributing copyrighted code without permission, even if kernel.org does? I request that the people planning to take over kernel maintenance comment ASAP on their plans regarding this issue, and what sort of help would be appreciated. -- There are none so blind as those who will not see.
