[Fedora-legal-list] Linux firmware

[Alexandre Oliva]

On May  6, 2009, "Tom \"spot\" Callaway" <tcallawa at redhat.com> wrote:

> On 05/05/2009 09:29 AM, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> Hopefully the authors got any permission needed from nVidia.  But
>> there's no evidence of that in the patch, and I don't know for a fact
>> that they did.  Do you?

> Yes. NVIDIA is aware of their usage.

Being aware is not quite the same as granting permission for it.  Like,
a patent holder might be aware of usage of some of their patents, but
wait a long time before lauching a patent attack, so that it becomes
more difficult for the defendant to stop using the technology.  I can
see the same strategy would be effective with copyrights.

> Red Hat Legal advises that there is no concern here.

Could we perhaps get an explicit license from nVidia, and put it in the
patch so that people are aware that there's no legal trap being set?

Thanks,

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
Free Software Evangelist      Red Hat Brazil Compiler Engineer