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Re: [LUG] Binary firmware licences

 

On Monday 27 February 2006 3:38 pm, Robin Cornelius wrote:
> A driver project i am involved with is in a fairly unique situation in
> the fact that we have a very good relationship with hardware company and
> we are currently trying to sort out some firmware problems. Some of the
> newer versions of hardware require firmware to operate,

This, presumably, is firmware that is not distributed with the hardware? i.e. 
some form of update?

Debian and GPL software in general will always work with pre-installed 
firmware whether it's binary or not. The issue only arises if your free 
software needs to adapt, modify, expand, update or otherwise tinker with the 
existing firmware or install it for the first time to a native piece of 
hardware.

It is certainly possible to handle binary files in Debian - look at nvidia - 
it just can't go into main. Your code would go into contrib and the binaries 
would go into non-free.

My question is:

If this is a required update to the existing firmware, isn't the firmware 
binary actually merely data? What you need is a free software method of 
installing the firmware update, not the source to the firmware itself.

Let me have some more details and I'll raise it on a debian mailing list.

> the hardware 
> vendor is willing to place the firmware files for direct download on
> their website,( instead of being packaged in a windows .sys driver),
> which is *very* nice of them.

That may be sufficient - after all, your software under the GPL can just say 
that to operate the hardware it needs to be updated using a binary from the 
manufacturer.

> It would be good if we could attach a licence with the firmware that
> would permit its redistribution with the open source drivers.

True, but that would put your code into contrib and the binary into non-free.

> We are in 
> the position to suggest licences but i think they would probably want a
> complete licence already done if possible. 

Depends on just how this firmware relates to the initial state of the 
hardware.

> Are there any existing 
> licences that are usable for binary firmware distribution?

Without the source code, it's always going to be non-free.

> Ideally 
> compatibility with debian would be nice as they are one of the strictest
> distros by trying to keep the code licences pure, is it possible to have
> binary only compatibility with debian in this way? or is the way to
> solve things to have a package that pulls the firmware from the vendors
> website when installing?.

Not sure. It may only be acceptable to point the user to the location of the 
GNU-friendly firmware update.

Is there any chance this version of the firmware is going to become the 
default installation? (Or have ABI compatibility with the default 
installation?)

> Oh the driver is also going in the kernel so it would be really nice to
> have out of the box support but i am not sure if this is possible, i
> know some kernel drivers use "blobs" (binary strings) that contain the
> firmware for some drivers but this causes political problems with the
> blobs being non GPL etc. It also depends on the size of the firmware i
> suspose, we are currently using the kernel firmware loader.

Let me have some more detail, off list if you like, and I'll get some answers.

-- 

Neil Williams
=============
http://www.data-freedom.org/
http://www.nosoftwarepatents.com/
http://www.linux.codehelp.co.uk/

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