Hello all, It seems our crusade to solve the dubious licencing of firmware inside the linux kernel source is starting to show is fruits. After the QLogic feedback Andres Salomon reported in a previous mail, it is now Broadcom which is coming back to us with a licence proposal.
Keep in mind that this was done under the assumption that a firmware embedded in the main kernel is an aggregate work (see mailing list archive for details, or discuss in a separate thread, CCing me if possible). This means that altough the firmware in itself remains non-free as far as the DFSG is concerned, it at least makes the whole file distributible again, which it was not while the firmware was distributed source-less under the GPL. The text of the new licence proposal is as follows : > +/* xxx.h: Broadcom tg3 network driver. > + * > + * Copyright (c) 2004, 2005 Broadcom Corporation > + * > + * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify > + * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by > + * the Free Software Foundation, except as noted below. > + * > + * This file contains firmware data derived from proprietary unpublished > + * source code, Copyright (c) 2004, 2005 Broadcom Corporation. > + * > + * Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware data > + * in hexadecimal or equivalent format, provided this copyright notice is > + * accompanying it. > + */ I would have liked a clear identification of the firmware blob, but i guess that to anyone familiar with C, it is immediately evident what is the firmware blob and what is normal code. So, before i reply to them, i would like to have feedback from debian-legal, and we can then move ahead and upload this driver to the non-free part of our archive, including a working .udeb. Thanks in advance, Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
