On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 11:05:03PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 10:23:08PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 09:58:30PM +0200, Adrian Bunk wrote: > > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 09:29:45PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 12:17:46PM -0700, Greg KH wrote: > > > > > On Mon, Apr 04, 2005 at 08:27:53PM +0200, Sven Luther wrote: > > > > > > Mmm, probably that 2001 discussion about the keyspan firmware, > > > > > > right ? > > > > > > > > > > > > http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2001/04/msg00145.html > > > > > > > > > > > > Can you summarize the conclusion of the thread, or what you did get > > > > > > from it, > > > > > > please ? > > > > > > > > > > That people didn't like the inclusion of firmware, I posted how you > > > > > can > > > > > fix it by moving it outside of the kernel, and asked for patches. > > > > > > > > Yeah, that is a solution to it, and i also deplore that none has done > > > > the job > > > > to make it loadable from userland. For now, debian is satisfied by > > > > moving the > > > > whole modules involved to non-free, and this has already happened in > > > > part. > > > > > > > > > Does this imply your installer will use these non-free modules? > > > > The installer already has provision for loading additional .udebs from > > floppy > > or net, not sure about other media, and we don't build yet non-free d-i > > images > > with those non-free modules builtin, but it could be arranged. This is > > post-sarge issues though, and we still have some time to solve them. > > > > > If the driver for the controller your harddisk is behind is not used by > > > the installer you could simply remove these modules instead of moving > > > them to non-free. > > > > yeah, the problem is a whole bunch of people have tg3 network cards it seem > > :) > > > I was more thinking about SCSI controllers, but tg3 is also interesting. > > Additional non-free d-i images will for sure be required, or several > hardware setups might make installation of Debian impossible without > bootstrapping through a different OS or distribution.
Well, you only need one free way to get access to external media, non-free d-i simply add a bunch of non-free .udebs to the initrd. > > > > Nope, i am aiming to clarify this issue with regard to the debian > > > > kernel, so > > > > that we may be clear with ourselves, and actually ship something which > > > > is not > > > > of dubious legal standing, and that we could get sued over for GPL > > > > violation. > > > >... > > > > > > > > > If it was a GPL violation, it wasn't enough to contact only the small > > > subset of copyright holders that worked on this specific file since > > > this file might be compiled statically into the GPL'ed kernel. > > > > That is not a problem, since even if the firmware is built into the same > > executable as the rest of the kernel code, it still constitutes only mere > > agregation, where the kernel is the distribution media, in the GPL sense. > > Please read the mail i linked too in the original mail for detailed > > argumentation of this. > > > > The only problem to it constituting mere agregation is that the firmware > > blob > > is not clearly identified as such in the tg3.c file (for example), and that > > there is no licencing condition allowing their distribution apart the GPL, > > which these firmware blobs where evidently not meant to be put under. > > > This is one possible legal interpretation of "mere aggregation". > > Whether judges in all jurisdictions of the world follow this > interpretation or an interpretation of the GPL in one direction or > another is the more interesting question. This is also hinted at by the FSF FAQ, and a verbatim interpretation of the actual GPL text. And you can proof by asburd that it has to be so, or you start facing no end of troubles :) The thread i linked, which is rather short, has some more legalese explanations (not by me :), if you are interested. Friendly, Sven Luther - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
