From: Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>
To: Larry Finger <Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net>
Cc: David Woodhouse <dwmw2@infradead.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] linux-firmware: Add firmware file for r8712u (RTL8192SU)
Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:29:30 +0200 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <201010192229.30133.arnd@arndb.de> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <4CBDE1C1.4020204@lwfinger.net>
On Tuesday 19 October 2010 20:21:53 Larry Finger wrote:
>
> I was the one that added the drive, including the firmware file, to the kernel.
> I know the driver was developed legally. I took source files that contain a GPL
> license (including the firmware source) from the Realtek public site, cleaned up
> the driver, added a copyright for my changes, and got permission from Realtek to
> submit the result to the staging directory through Greg K-H.
Ok, so if you have the firmware source, add a proper make file and the source along
with the binary file. You made it sound like the you only had the firmware as
a hexdump, which would not be possible under the GPLv2 section 3, which says
"The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it".
> > Hint: some files of the driver contain these "interesting" conditions:
> >
> > /*
> > * Copyright(c) 2008 - 2010 Realtek Corporation. All rights reserved.
> > * Linux device driver for RTL8192U
> > *
> > * Based on the r8187 driver, which is:
> > * Copyright 2004-2005 Andrea Merello <andreamrl@tiscali.it>, et al.
> > * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
> > * under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as
> > * published by the Free Software Foundation.
>
> That Merello copyright really has little to do with the current driver. As
> Realtek included it in their source, I left it in, but consider it to be an
> honorary citation.
That part is fine, what is not fine is the "All rights reserved" portion, which
contradicts the GPL.
Arnd
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2010-10-19 20:29 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 9+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2010-10-19 15:54 [PATCH] linux-firmware: Add firmware file for r8712u (RTL8192SU) Larry Finger
2010-10-19 15:58 ` David Woodhouse
2010-10-19 16:07 ` Larry Finger
2010-10-19 16:08 ` David Woodhouse
2010-10-19 16:26 ` Larry Finger
2010-10-19 17:35 ` Arnd Bergmann
2010-10-19 18:21 ` Larry Finger
2010-10-19 20:29 ` Arnd Bergmann [this message]
2010-10-20 16:38 ` Larry Finger
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