Matthew Garrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > Brian Thomas Sniffen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Marco, it seems to me that there's a parallel case to non-free >> firmware: dongleware. Perhaps you could explain how this philosophy >> applies to that. If a piece of software is distributed under the GPL, >> can I add functionality by putting it into firmware on a dongle and >> having GCC call that? > > It would obviously be insane to consider that free, since you'd > obviously only be doing it in order to circumvent GPL requirements. On > the other hand, holding the same standards in driver-land would be > equally ridiculous - people use firmware because that's the way it's > always been, not because they're trying to screw us over.
OK, it would be GPL-incompatible. Would it be free? > There are drivers we ship that require you to have a specific version of > the firmware in eeprom. In at least one case, it's not possible to > provide this without the user returning the card so that extra flash can > be attached. Would you class this as dongleware or acceptable behaviour? I don't think dongleware like that is free -- if I could remove the dongle and the software which checks for it and still have the same functionality, then it's free. I think that requiring a hardware upgrade to support behavior is irrelevant to free software. Firmware that's part of the hardware is part of the hardware. Firmware that looks like software is software. If Debian *could* ship it, it's software. Stuff requiring 3d-acceleration, or the -686 kernels, are all free. -Brian -- Brian Sniffen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
