On Fri, 2014-06-13 at 20:12 +0200, Gregor Riepl wrote: > Is there an update on the packaging status of alsa-firmware, or integration > into linux-firmware-nonfree? > > This RFP was reported more than 3 years ago, yet firmware images for certain > audio devices are still missing in Debian.
I discussed this with Takashi Iwai in 2012 and he asked to merge all of alsa-firmware into linux-firmware.git periodically. Unfortunately, some of the blobs in alsa-firmware are purportedly licensed under the GPLv2, but without source code available. The same problem exists for some blobs that were moved out of the linux tree, but since they were included in Linux tarballs for many years without objection from the copyright holders it is probably safe for kernel.org and other distributors to continue distributing them. However I am not prepared to put anyone at legal risk by adding more of these. (Note that the firmware-nonfree source package doesn't include any of the problematic blobs.) I think we need someone to review the licence status of blobs in alsa-firmware and determine which of them are clearly redistributable. Then these can be added to linux-firmware.git and to Debian's firmware-nonfree. Ben. -- Ben Hutchings Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest.
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