Re: GPLed firmware flasher ...

[Humberto Massa]

Michael Below wrote:
Sven Luther <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
 

My understanding of this is that neither the firmware constitute a
   

derived
 

work from the flasher, nor the flasher constitute a derived work of
   

the
 

firmware. The fact that they are individually packaged in the same elf
   

binary
 

does not constitute a linking act, nor a derivation/modification act,
   

but mere
 

aggregation, and is thus not a problem for the GPL.
   

I think the opposite is right :) 

To the user, this doesn't appear as two separate works. He/she/it will
see one program with pre-loaded data. If you are using already
existing, copyrighted data (the firmware), this means you are building
your work on top of the data. This is a derived work, I'd say (this
doesn't imply anything to the weight of your work).
I think it is misleading if you think about the firmware as a program,
which indeed doesn't communicate with the flasher. As far as I
understand, the firmware that is being flashed doesn't run during
operation of the flasher. I.e. it is being treated as data. And this
data isn't treated "at arm's length", it is permanently incorporated
into the executable.
So I'd say you should either build the flasher in a more general,
"arm's length" way (one flasher executable, potentially different data
files). Or you should consider using the LGPL. It doesn't fit exactly,
but it should come closer to what you want.
Michael Below
 

Despite the letter of the GPL and its post-amble, "linking", generally 
construed as "stitching together (normally executable) object (as 
opposed to source) files and resolving fixups so the result is an 
executable file" does NOT make a derivative work. Derivative works are 
made when you have intelligent *transformation* of the original work. 
Linking is not intelligent -- much au contraire, it's fully automatic.

So, no, if it doesn't fit, you must acquit -- IOW: the fact of embedding 
the flasher and the flash in the same ELF file does not make the 
combined work a derivative work on any of them; only a "collective" work 
on both.

Collective works are treated separately by copyright law. To distribute 
a collective work, the distributor must comply with both licenses 
individually (flasher=GPL, flash=proprietary). If the flash albeit 
proprietary is redistributable, the combined ELF is Ok.

With the obvious caveat that it couldn't be distributed _by_ _Debian_.
HTH,
Massa

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