Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262157AbUCZOTu (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:19:50 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S263089AbUCZOTu (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:19:50 -0500 Received: from 1-2-2-1a.has.sth.bostream.se ([82.182.130.86]:13480 "EHLO K-7.stesmi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262157AbUCZOTq (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:19:46 -0500 Message-ID: <40643BFA.1000302@stesmi.com> Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 15:19:38 +0100 From: Stefan Smietanowski User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7b) Gecko/20040316 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eduard Bloch CC: David Schwartz , debian-devel@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Binary-only firmware covered by the GPL? References: <20040325225423.GT9248@cheney.cx> <20040326131629.GB26910@zombie.inka.de> In-Reply-To: <20040326131629.GB26910@zombie.inka.de> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1263 Lines: 33 Eduard Bloch wrote: > #include > * David Schwartz [Thu, Mar 25 2004, 04:41:23PM]: > > >>>IMHO code that can be compiled would probably be the preferred form >>>of the work. >> >> You are seriously arguing that the obfuscated binary of the firmware is the >>preferred form of the firmware for the purpose of making modifications to >>it?! > > > Yes, the driver authors PREFERS to make the changes on the C source > code, he never has to modify the firmware. Exactly what the GPL > requests, where is your problem? But the firmware didn't appear out of thin air - someone wrote it somehow. If that's using a hex editor or inside the C code doesn't matter, but most likely they used some other language like either C or assembly (no, not all firmware is written using assembly), and there are cases where some are in fact written using a hex editor but I can't remember any that has been for the last 30 or so years but I'm sure there has been cases where there hasn't been a working assembler. // Stefan - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/