alsa-firmware licensing

alsa-firmware licensing

[Tim Jackson]

As part of the Fedora Project [1], I'm trying to package [2] the ALSA 
firmware up for easy distribution to Fedora users.

The trouble is that the licensing seems unclear. Specifically:

a) Several firmwares claim to be under the GPL but don't specify a 
version and don't include source - see 
https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=3411

b) More worryingly, the Emagic EMI 2|6 firmware appears to be under a 
"license" which prohibits ANY redistribution. Quoting from 
emi_26_62/license.txt (my emphasis):

"The firmware contained herein is Copyright (c) 1999-2002 Emagic
as an unpublished work. This notice does not imply unrestricted
or public access to this firmware which is a trade secret of Emagic,
and which ***may not be reproduced, used, sold or transferred to
any third party without Emagic's written consent.***"

Does the ALSA project have special authorisation ("written consent") to 
distribute this? Who within the ALSA project is responsible for the 
-firmware package and might be able to help resolve some of these 
queries? Does anyone have a contact at Emagic (which seems to have been 
bought by Apple) to discuss relaxing the firmware conditions slightly?


Any information most welcome. We'd really like to get the firmware in 
Fedora.

Thanks,

Tim

[1] http://www.fedoraproject.org/
[2] https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=217259

Re: alsa-firmware licensing

[Clemens Ladisch]

Tim Jackson wrote:
> b) More worryingly, the Emagic EMI 2|6 firmware appears to be under a 
> "license" which prohibits ANY redistribution. Quoting from 
> emi_26_62/license.txt (my emphasis):
> 
> "The firmware contained herein is Copyright (c) 1999-2002 Emagic
> as an unpublished work. This notice does not imply unrestricted
> or public access to this firmware which is a trade secret of Emagic,
> and which ***may not be reproduced, used, sold or transferred to
> any third party without Emagic's written consent.***"

The emi firmware files are copies of linux/drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h
and emi62_fw_*.h.  emi26_fw.h contains three copies of this "license",
but only the first one contains this paragraph which is missing in
license.txt:

| Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware 
| image as part of a Linux or other Open Source operating system kernel 
| in text or binary form as required. 

I've added this paragraph to license.txt.

> Does the ALSA project have special authorisation ("written consent") to 
> distribute this?

Well, I'd guess the alsa-firmware package is part of Linux.

Please note that the emi26 and emi62 drivers still use the in-kernel
copies of their firmware images; the files in alsa-firmware are as yet
unused.

> Does anyone have a contact at Emagic (which seems to have been 
> bought by Apple) to discuss relaxing the firmware conditions slightly?

Emagic helped writing the emi26 driver, but these devices were
discontinued shortly after Apple bought Emagic.  AFAIK nobody now at
Apple knows, or cares.


Regards,
Clemens

Re: alsa-firmware licensing

[Takashi Iwai]

At Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:41:21 +0100,
Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> 
> Tim Jackson wrote:
> > b) More worryingly, the Emagic EMI 2|6 firmware appears to be under a 
> > "license" which prohibits ANY redistribution. Quoting from 
> > emi_26_62/license.txt (my emphasis):
> > 
> > "The firmware contained herein is Copyright (c) 1999-2002 Emagic
> > as an unpublished work. This notice does not imply unrestricted
> > or public access to this firmware which is a trade secret of Emagic,
> > and which ***may not be reproduced, used, sold or transferred to
> > any third party without Emagic's written consent.***"
> 
> The emi firmware files are copies of linux/drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h
> and emi62_fw_*.h.  emi26_fw.h contains three copies of this "license",
> but only the first one contains this paragraph which is missing in
> license.txt:
> 
> | Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware 
> | image as part of a Linux or other Open Source operating system kernel 
> | in text or binary form as required. 
> 
> I've added this paragraph to license.txt.
> 
> > Does the ALSA project have special authorisation ("written consent") to 
> > distribute this?
> 
> Well, I'd guess the alsa-firmware package is part of Linux.

And Linux kernel is under GPL v2, so it must be OK.  It'd be better to
add the note that this firmware data is copied from the linux kernel
tree and show the kernel license (GPLv2) explicitly for emi2|6 stuff,
together with the original copyright of the driver source code.

I think other firmwares copied from the kernel tree (maestro3, ymfpci,
etc) should include the similar note, too.

Clemens, could you add that?


Thanks,

Takashi

Re: alsa-firmware licensing

[Takashi Iwai]

At Sat, 05 Jan 2008 14:15:31 +0000,
Tim Jackson wrote:
> 
> As part of the Fedora Project [1], I'm trying to package [2] the ALSA 
> firmware up for easy distribution to Fedora users.
> 
> The trouble is that the licensing seems unclear. Specifically:
> 
> a) Several firmwares claim to be under the GPL but don't specify a 
> version and don't include source - see 
> https://bugtrack.alsa-project.org/alsa-bug/view.php?id=3411

The firmware data there are example data, as explicitly writtein in
README.  They are no program to run, in our definition.

The version should follow the one in COPYING included in the
tarball unless different defined in each subdirectory.


Takashi

Re: alsa-firmware licensing

[Tim Jackson]

Clemens Ladisch wrote:

Thanks for all your help Clemens and apologies for the slow reply.

 > Tim Jackson wrote:

[... emi firmware licensing]
> The emi firmware files are copies of linux/drivers/usb/misc/emi26_fw.h
> and emi62_fw_*.h.  emi26_fw.h contains three copies of this "license",
> but only the first one contains this paragraph which is missing in
> license.txt:
> 
> | Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware 
> | image as part of a Linux or other Open Source operating system kernel 
> | in text or binary form as required. 
> 
> I've added this paragraph to license.txt.

Thanks.

>> Does the ALSA project have special authorisation ("written consent") to 
>> distribute this?
> 
> Well, I'd guess the alsa-firmware package is part of Linux.

Unfortunately I don't think that's a "guess" that some distributors such 
as Fedora can risk to take. Although ALSA is of course part of a "Linux 
... kernel", the wording "as part of" is ambiguous and there's certainly 
an argument that a standalone ALSA firmware package (i.e. not 
distributed along with the rest of the kernel) is not "distribution...as 
part of" a kernel.

Much though I'd *like* these firmwares to be distributable, unless those 
licensing terms get changed, I think we'll have to drop those particular 
firmwares in Fedora.

> Please note that the emi26 and emi62 drivers still use the in-kernel
> copies of their firmware images; the files in alsa-firmware are as yet
> unused.

That's useful, thanks. Is the plan to drop the in-kernel ones at some 
point then? At least this means if we do drop the firmware it won't have 
any negative effect, at least at the moment.


Thanks

Tim

Re: alsa-firmware licensing

[Clemens Ladisch]

Tim Jackson wrote:
> Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> > Please note that the emi26 and emi62 drivers still use the in-kernel
> > copies of their firmware images; the files in alsa-firmware are as yet
> > unused.
> 
> That's useful, thanks. Is the plan to drop the in-kernel ones at some 
> point then?

Yes; as soon as we find somebody with such a device to test the changes.
(It's possible that this will never happen ...)


Regards,
Clemens

emi26 device available to give to somebody to use for alsa testing e: alsa-firmware licensing

[John Utz]

Oh hey, i didnt read this carefully enough.

I actually have one that i would be happy to give away.

Who can i send it to?

On Wed, 30 Jan 2008 09:13:21 +0100
"Clemens Ladisch" <cladisch@fastmail.net> wrote:

> Tim Jackson wrote:
> > Clemens Ladisch wrote:
> > > Please note that the emi26 and emi62 drivers still use the
> > > in-kernel copies of their firmware images; the files in
> > > alsa-firmware are as yet unused.
> > 
> > That's useful, thanks. Is the plan to drop the in-kernel ones at
> > some point then?
> 
> Yes; as soon as we find somebody with such a device to test the
> changes. (It's possible that this will never happen ...)
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Clemens
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