You've identified an issue regarding copies of Ubuntu CDs that, while a valid concern, can be addressed. (I'm a lawyer, not a developer, so that's where my strengths and weaknesses fall.) Broadcom wouldn't agree to let Canonical distribute the network card driver with its CDs if they--as you note--were uncomfortable with third parties making copies of the Canonical CDs. The question is how do you make them comfortable.
(Canonical actively encourages third parties to copy its CDs and wouldn't want something in the CD that prevents this, so the freedom to copy CDs needs to be protected too.) If Canonical could get Broadcom to agree to let Canonical distribute the drivers with the CD, your concern about third party copies can be addressed in licensing language that made it clear that third parties could copy the CD and distribute it with the driver so long as the third party copier and "fourth party" recipient honored the distribution agreement between Broadcom and Canonical. This is not so different from GNU conditions on incorporating GNU software into new products. It's something to have your lawyers look at, but I suspect the real problem is that Broadcom doesn't see a need to help Ubuntu users and/or worries that "unlicensed" third party copies might water down their legal arguments for going after driver reverse engineering. That is probably their real worry. That someone will work the Broadcom driver into a competitor's product. Regards, Bud Virginia Ubuntu user On Thu, 2008-07-03 at 21:57 +0200, Martin Pitt wrote: > Mackenzie Morgan [2008-07-03 14:31 -0400]: > > On Thu, Jul 3, 2008 at 2:26 PM, Martin Pitt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Przemysław Kulczycki [2008-07-03 20:14 +0200]: > > >> If not, then maybe Canonical could ask Broadcom for permission to > > >> redistribute these files? > > > > > > That already happened many times, but fell on deaf ears unfortunately. > > > > And even then, that'd just give Canonical permission to redistribute > > them. It wouldn't give us (the users who like to make copies of our > > Ubuntu CDs and hand them out) permission. > > Well, of course I meant "for Ubuntu", i. e. permission to redistribute > the firmware freely (as in beer, and as in "no limits"). > > Martin > -- > Martin Pitt | http://www.piware.de > Ubuntu Developer (www.ubuntu.com) | Debian Developer (www.debian.org) >
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