Return-path: Received: from mail-bl2nam02on0053.outbound.protection.outlook.com ([104.47.38.53]:44004 "EHLO NAM02-BL2-obe.outbound.protection.outlook.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-FAIL) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932949AbcKVOok (ORCPT ); Tue, 22 Nov 2016 09:44:40 -0500 Subject: Re: [RFC] qtn: add FullMAC firmware for Quantenna QSR10G wifi device References: <1478700000-11624-1-git-send-email-igor.mitsyanko.os@quantenna.com> <1478706966.18306.1.camel@sipsolutions.net> <2fcb5f28-808e-f296-7e91-e5185e7577c9@quantenna.com> <1478725543.21403.4.camel@sipsolutions.net> <1478864146.4129.4.camel@sipsolutions.net> CC: Johannes Berg , , , , , , Igor Mitsyanko , Kamlesh Rath , Sergey Matyukevich , Avinash Patil To: Ben Hutchings , Kyle McMartin From: IgorMitsyanko Message-ID: (sfid-20161122_154445_024869_1300FC71) Date: Tue, 22 Nov 2016 17:44:10 +0300 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <1478864146.4129.4.camel@sipsolutions.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"; format=flowed Sender: linux-wireless-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: Hi Ben, Kyle, could you please share what is the position of linux-firmware regarding firmware binaries that include GPL components? Does it require entire GPL components codebase be present in linux-firmware tree, or maybe having this clause in license file is enough: +Open Source Software. The Software may include components that are licensed +pursuant to open source software (“Open Source Components”). Information +regarding the Open Source Components included with the Software is available +upon request to oslegal@quantenna.com. To the extent such Open Source +Components are required to be licensed to you under the terms of a separate +license (such as an open source license) then such other terms shall apply, and +nothing herein shall be deemed or interpreted to limit any rights you may have +under any such applicable license. From technical perspective, size of the codebase used to build Quantenna firmware is a few hundred MBs, it seems too much to include into linux-firmware tree. On 11/11/2016 02:35 PM, Johannes Berg wrote: > Adding linux-firmware people to Cc, since presumably they don't > necessarily read linux-wireless... > >> Johannes, from that perspective, who are the "redistributors"? >> Specifically, is linux-firmware git repository considered a >> redistributor or its just hosting files? I mean, at what moment >> someone else other then Quantenna will start to be legally obliged to >> make GPL code used in firmware available for others? > Look, I don't know. I'd assume people who ship it, like any regular > distro, would be (re)distributors thereof. "Normal" (non-GPL) firmware > images come with a redistribution license, but that obviously can't > work here. > > There's some info from Ben here regarding the carl9170 case: > http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1605.3/01176.html > >> Personally I still hope that linux-firmware itself is not legally >> concerned with what is the content of firmware its hosting, but looks >> like there already was a precedent case with carl9170 driver and >> we have to somehow deal with it. > That's really all I wanted to bring up. I'm not involved with the > linux-firmware git tree. > >> There still may be a difference though: Quantenna is semiconductor >> company only, software >> used on actual products based on Quantenna chipsets is released by >> other >> companies. >> I just want to present our legal team with a clear case (and position >> of >> Linux maintainers) so that they can >> work with it and make decision on how to proceed. >> >> From technical perspective, as I mentioned, SDK is quite huge and >> include a lot of opensource >> components including full Linux, I don't think its reasonable to have >> it >> inside linux-firmware tree. >> What are the options to share it other then providing it on request >> basis: >> - git repository >> - store tarball somewhere on official website > Clearly that wasn't deemed appropriate for carl9170, so I don't see why > it'd be different here. > > johannes