On Mon, Oct 02, 2006 at 10:34:06PM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA1 > > Sven Luther wrote: > > On Mon, Sep 18, 2006 at 10:09:14AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote: > >> I think you're wrong here, unless you're using an unusual definition > >> of "distributable". The usual definition used by debian-legal is "We have > >> explicit legal permission to distribute it." If you were right, we > >> wouldn't > >> have 46 undistributable files in Debian's Linux kernel packages today. > >> > >> Should Debian release with those files (again)? This is a very, very > >> important question. Currently Debian is on track to release with 46 > >> undistributable files. > > > > Indeed, but then, there are few issues to consider about this : > Absolutely, these are things which should be considered. > > > - in some cases, like the acenic driver, the original copyright hholder as > > well as the current copyright information is lost forever in some box > > during one of the mergers. Likelihood of someone actually showing up and > > saying this code belongs to them, and they can clarify the licencing, or > > sue us, is very very small. > Yep. This is frankly the situation with a lot of "abandonware". > I'd love to distribute "Executive Suite", but who knows what happened to > Grey Flannel Fun? > > Should Debian distribute abandonware? If so, which abandonware? Should > the Linux kernel be held to laxer standards than everything else?
The nice thing about the acenic firmware is that there is actually source code available, but the non-DFSG freeness comes from it "being distributable only with the acenic driver", if i remember well. > > - in other cases, the original author is distibuting this sourceless > > material themselves under the GPL, clearly a mistake or omission, which > > they would be happy to fix, as the broadcom and qlogic case have shown. > > Yes. In this case, we have to actually track them down and fix it, > which is incredibly tedious. But I agree that in this case we can > usually assume that they *will* fix it. But how *long* do we give > them to fix it before we conclude that we really haven't gotten it > fixed and we should remove the software to be legally safe? A month? > Five years? Well, when i contacted broadcom over the tg3 case, there was a reply, and when me and Andres followed up on it, it took a couple of month or so. The resulting firmware is still non-free, but at least it is distributable now. Friendly, Sven Luther -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
