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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