Update to Binary Firmware Exceptions

[Tom Callaway]

Two minor exceptions have been added to the Licensing Guidelines:

A new exception has been added to permit prebuilt binary QEMU ROMs
implementing BIOS or Firmware for QEMU system targets to be packaged in
those situations where it is not practical or possible to build them
from source, as long as the corresponding source code is also included
in the Source RPM package.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:SoftwareTypes#QEMU_ROMs

The wording of the Binary Firmware exception has been amended slightly
to permit the packaging and inclusion of firmware files which are
necessary to boot Fedora on some devices (e.g. raspberrypi), as long as
the standard exception criteria are met.

https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:SoftwareTypes#Binary_Firmware

Thanks,

~tom

==
Fedora Project

[Adam Williamson]

On Wed, 2012-10-24 at 10:56 -0400, Tom Callaway wrote:
> Two minor exceptions have been added to the Licensing Guidelines:
>
> A new exception has been added to permit prebuilt binary QEMU ROMs
> implementing BIOS or Firmware for QEMU system targets to be packaged in
> those situations where it is not practical or possible to build them
> from source, as long as the corresponding source code is also included
> in the Source RPM package.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:SoftwareTypes#QEMU_ROMs
>
> The wording of the Binary Firmware exception has been amended slightly
> to permit the packaging and inclusion of firmware files which are
> necessary to boot Fedora on some devices (e.g. raspberrypi), as long as
> the standard exception criteria are met.
>
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:SoftwareTypes#Binary_Firmware

I don't want to sound too alarmist, but these laser-focused changes
aimed at the Pi seem slightly worrying to me in the context of:

http://airlied.livejournal.com/76383.html

If the firmware is as useless and anti-F/OSS as Dave suggests, do we
really want to be letting it in? Should we be drawing a distinction
between the two kinds of firmware Dave identifies in his blog post?

[Tom Callaway]

On 10/24/2012 06:30 PM, Adam Williamson wrote:
> I don't want to sound too alarmist, but these laser-focused changes
> aimed at the Pi seem slightly worrying to me in the context of:
>
> http://airlied.livejournal.com/76383.html
>
> If the firmware is as useless and anti-F/OSS as Dave suggests, do we
> really want to be letting it in? Should we be drawing a distinction
> between the two kinds of firmware Dave identifies in his blog post?

The firmware for the raspberrypi is necessary to boot anything on the
device. This is different from the videocore libs that were previously
proprietary but are now BSD. The videocore libs are kindof awful in all
the ways that David Airlie covers, but you can run Fedora on the
Raspberry Pi without them. You cannot even boot Fedora on the raspberry
pi without the firmware present on the SD card (and thus, part of the
"Fedora" image that we would distribute for that platform).

At no point was I trying to extend the guidelines to support including
the proprietary videocore libs.

~tom

==
Fedora Project