On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 12:01:14 -0400 Andres Salomon wrote: > On Fri, 08 Jul 2005 01:59:25 +0200, Francesco Poli wrote: [...] > > First of all, it's the "GNU General Public License", otherwise > > they're referring to a non-existent license... ;-) > > > > Yea, someone else caught that as well; I emailed them about it.
Good. Keep us informed about their response...
>
>
> > Then a question: this looks like dual licensing the work under
> > GPLv2 / 3-clause-BSD.
> > Why not just a 3-clause BSD license?
> > It's simple, DFGS-free and GPL-compatible. Adding an optional GPL
> > seems to be a no-op...
> >
>
> It still won't be DFSG-free, since the source code is not available.
Then, adding an optional GPL seems to be a no-op, even more than before:
I cannot choose to redistribute and/or modify the program under the
terms of the GNU GPL, since I do not have any source to distribute.
> I suspect they went with a modified 3-clause BSD because their lawyers
> wanted additional protection.
Modifications seem to be located in the disclaimer only (if I see
correctly).
I don't know if they are actually effective in giving QLogic Corp more
protection...
>
> The reason for the dual licensing is because they have OEMs that would
> need to re-qualify (that may be the incorrect wording, I forget what
> they said, and it was a phone conversation so it's not in an inbox
> anywhere) the driver if the license changes. That's a pain for
> everyone involved, and would take several months. So, by
> dual-licensing, the OEMs can continue using the driver and firmware
> under the GPL (invalid or not),
and thus violating QLogic copyright?
> while we (Debian) can choose to use it
> under a BSD-alike license.
Well, with a BSDish license, we have permission to distribute, yes, so
we can put this package in non-free.
We cannot go beyond that, though: main and contrib are off-limits for a
sourceless package.
But that is surely clear to you...
>
>
> > Finally, what are we talking about? ;-) Is this the license for the
> > driver?
> > Or rather for the firmware?
> > Or for both?
>
> I'm hoping for both. I've asked them to change it to explicitly
> mention that the license refers to the firmware as well.
OK, keep us informed about these developments, as well.
Thanks! :)
--
:-( This Universe is buggy! Where's the Creator's BTS? ;-)
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