Glenn Maynard wrote: > On Wed, Apr 28, 2004 at 08:04:13AM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote: > >>Has anyone asked Linus what his feelings are regarding firmware? If he >>thinks it's acceptable (or possibly even the 'preferred form of >>modification') to have in Linux and that it's not violating the GPL then >>I don't think we have a problem. In these cases of ambiguity it makes >>sense to me to ask the copyright holder to clarify for us instead of >>assuming that they're violating their own license. > > > I concur with the other responses: Linus is not the sole copyright holder. > > I'll also reiterate the other problem: even if we believe that the entire > Linux kernel developer body agrees (which may be the case, though I doubt > it), I'm sure there's a lot of code in the kernel pulled from other GPL > projects, whose copyright holders aren't kernel developers at all.
At least one developer does not agree - Adam J. Richter of Yggdrasil officially objected to binary-only firmware on the Linux kernel mailing list in the message http://www.uwsg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0305.1/0157.html : > for the record, I believe that the existing "firmware blobs" > in Linux that do not include source infringe Yggdrasil copyrights > on GPL-licensed kernel contributions (just as I believe they > infringe many other authors' GPL-licensed contributions). - Josh Triplett
