Plan for tomorrows (20080522) FESCO meeting
Jon Stanley
jonstanley at gmail.com
Thu May 22 18:13:14 UTC 2008
On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 1:48 PM, David Woodhouse <dwmw2 at infradead.org> wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-05-22 at 12:47 -0400, Alan Cox wrote:
>> On Thu, May 22, 2008 at 02:18:22AM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> > kernel. And, heck, this one doesn't even grant permission for
>> > redistribution. What are those Linux-no-libre guys thinking?
>>
>> Well we were thinking (and much legal advice seems to agree) that the firmware
>> is a separate work. Like your BIOS for example.
>
> Being a separate work doesn't save it from the requirements of the GPL.
>
> The GPL clearly states that under some circumstances it _does_ extend to
> sections which are independent and separate works in themselves.
>
> And it seems fairly clear to me that those circumstances include the
> firmware blobs included in the Linux kernel tarball.
>
> If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the
> Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and
> separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms,
> do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as
> separate works.
>
> (OK, that's the firmware).
>
> But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole
> which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the
> whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions
> for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each
> and every part regardless of who wrote it.
This could probably be considered as a "mere aggregation" for the
purposes of the GPL, however, IANAL
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