Distributing NXP i.MX 8 firmware blobs in Debian

Distributing NXP i.MX 8 firmware blobs in Debian

[Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues]

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Dear NXP team,

I'm writing you as a member of the Debian project. I am trying to add support
for platforms like the NXP i.MX8MQ to the debian-installer disk images. These
images need to (for example) contain the DDR training blobs which can be
downloaded from
https://www.nxp.com/lgfiles/NMG/MAD/YOCTO/firmware-imx-8.24-fbe0a4c.bin

Unfortunately, the NXP Software License Agreement states:

> 2.3. [..] If expressly authorized in the
> Software Content Register, subject to the terms and conditions of this
> Agreement, NXP grants you a [...] license solely in connection with your
> manufacturing and distribution of an Authorized System:
> [...]
> (b)	to copy and distribute as needed, solely in connection with an
> Authorized System and for use in combination with a NXP Product,

My reading of that agreement is, that Debian is not permitted to redistribute
these blobs. But this in turn means that our disk images will not work
out-of-the box with NXP platforms that require these blobs to be loaded early
during boot to function.

Could you assist me in connecting with the appropriate person who can help
resolve this issue? Maybe there is a possibility for the Debian project to be
allowed to distribute these blobs in its repositories?

Thanks a lot in advance and have a nice weekend!

Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues

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Re: Distributing NXP i.MX 8 firmware blobs in Debian

[Frank Li]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 03:57:47PM +0200, Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues wrote:
> Dear NXP team,
> 
> I'm writing you as a member of the Debian project. I am trying to add support
> for platforms like the NXP i.MX8MQ to the debian-installer disk images. These
> images need to (for example) contain the DDR training blobs which can be
> downloaded from
> https://www.nxp.com/lgfiles/NMG/MAD/YOCTO/firmware-imx-8.24-fbe0a4c.bin
> 
> Unfortunately, the NXP Software License Agreement states:
> 
> > 2.3. [..] If expressly authorized in the
> > Software Content Register, subject to the terms and conditions of this
> > Agreement, NXP grants you a [...] license solely in connection with your
> > manufacturing and distribution of an Authorized System:
> > [...]
> > (b)	to copy and distribute as needed, solely in connection with an
> > Authorized System and for use in combination with a NXP Product,
> 
> My reading of that agreement is, that Debian is not permitted to redistribute
> these blobs. But this in turn means that our disk images will not work
> out-of-the box with NXP platforms that require these blobs to be loaded early
> during boot to function.
> 
> Could you assist me in connecting with the appropriate person who can help
> resolve this issue? Maybe there is a possibility for the Debian project to be
> allowed to distribute these blobs in its repositories?
> 

Forward to internal release management team. Hope they can help this.

Frank

> Thanks a lot in advance and have a nice weekend!
> 
> Johannes Schauer Marin Rodrigues