[Fedora-legal-list] Linux firmware

[Tom "spot" Callaway]

On 05/04/2009 09:15 PM, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> I'm pretty sure the definition of Fedora licensing policies does not
> make room for blatant copyright violation, distributing code under
> GPL+restrictions that is derived from GPL code.  And, again, the GPL
> violation is not firmware, it's driver code (stuff that runs on the
> primary CPU, per Fedora's definition), in case it isn't clear yet.

So, to make sure I'm clear (I'm ignoring all of the parts where you fail
to be specific, and where you put words in my mouth), the situation
you're concerned about is one where:

Someone (you failed to mention who) stole copyrighted code (from someone
else, again, you fail to mention who), then added restrictions to the
derived work.

I thought maybe you were talking about drivers/net/bnx2_fw.h.
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob;f=drivers/net/bnx2_fw.h;hb=HEAD

But no, everything seems okay there.

http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux-2.6.git;a=blob;f=drivers/net/bnx2x_link.h;hb=HEAD

This has an odd licensing clause, specifically:

* Notwithstanding the above, under no circumstances may you combine this
* software in any way with any other Broadcom software provided under a
* license other than the GPL, without Broadcom's express prior written
* consent.

Is this what you're talking about? (And if so, why couldn't you just
&*#$ing say so?)

If it is, this isn't a copyright violation. It's very strange, and I
could see the argument that it makes that piece of code non-free, but it
is probably something that we could try to address with Broadcom and the
owners of the code space, (specifically, Yaniv Rosner
<yanivr at broadcom.com>). Have you reached out to him about your concerns?

See how useful specific details are? :/

~spot