From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Tim Jackson Subject: Re: alsa-firmware licensing Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2008 18:11:35 +0000 Message-ID: <479F6C57.4030309@timj.co.uk> References: <477F9103.9010304@timj.co.uk> <1199702481.16243.1229842463@webmail.messagingengine.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from mx1.firecluster.net (blixt.firecluster.net [89.16.161.116]) by alsa0.perex.cz (Postfix) with ESMTP id 14516103896 for ; Tue, 29 Jan 2008 19:11:51 +0100 (CET) In-Reply-To: <1199702481.16243.1229842463@webmail.messagingengine.com> List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Sender: alsa-devel-bounces@alsa-project.org Errors-To: alsa-devel-bounces@alsa-project.org To: Clemens Ladisch Cc: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org List-Id: alsa-devel@alsa-project.org 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