Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262442AbVDGM3g (ORCPT ); Thu, 7 Apr 2005 08:29:36 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262445AbVDGM3g (ORCPT ); Thu, 7 Apr 2005 08:29:36 -0400 Received: from hades.almg.gov.br ([200.198.60.36]:12931 "EHLO hades.almg.gov.br") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262442AbVDGM3d (ORCPT ); Thu, 7 Apr 2005 08:29:33 -0400 Message-ID: <4255278E.4000303@almg.gov.br> Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2005 09:29:02 -0300 From: Humberto Massa User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0+ (Windows/20050224) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: David Schmitt , debian-kernel@lists.debian.org, debian-legal@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-acenic@sunsite.dk Subject: Re: non-free firmware in kernel modules, aggregation and unclear copyright notice. References: In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1364 Lines: 36 David Schmitt wrote: > On Thursday 07 April 2005 09:25, Jes Sorensen wrote: > > > [snip] I got it from Alteon under a written agreement stating I > > could distribute the image under the GPL. Since the firmware is > > simply data to Linux, hence keeping it under the GPL should be just > > fine. > > > Then I would like to exercise my right under the GPL to aquire the > source code for the firmware (and the required compilers, starting > with genfw.c which is mentioned in acenic_firmware.h) since - as far > as I know - firmware is coded today in VHDL, C or some assembler and > the days of hexcoding are long gone. First, there is *NOT* any requirement in the GPL at all that requires making compilers available. Otherwise it would not be possible, for instance, have a Visual Basic GPL'd application. And yes, it is possible. Second, up until the present day I have personal experience with hardware producers that do not have enough money to buy expensive toolchains and used a lot of hand-work to code hardware parameters. So, at least for them, hand-hexcoding-days are still going. HTH, Massa - 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/