From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stefan Smietanowski Subject: Re: Binary-only firmware covered by the GPL? Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2004 09:53:57 +0100 Sender: linux-scsi-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <4063EFA5.5070001@stesmi.com> References: <20040325082949.GA3376@gondor.apana.org.au> <20040325220803.GZ16746@fs.tum.de> <40635DD9.8090809@pobox.com> <20040326003339.GD25059@parcelfarce.linux.theplanet.co.uk> <81ptb0wh45.wl@omega.webmasters.gr.jp> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from 1-2-2-1a.has.sth.bostream.se ([82.182.130.86]:5798 "EHLO K-7.stesmi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S263974AbUCZIzU (ORCPT ); Fri, 26 Mar 2004 03:55:20 -0500 In-Reply-To: <81ptb0wh45.wl@omega.webmasters.gr.jp> List-Id: linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org To: GOTO Masanori Cc: Matthew Wilcox , Jeff Garzik , Adrian Bunk , 239952@bugs.debian.org, debian-devel@lists.debian.org, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org Hi GOTO. > But think about: why can we distribute assembler only code in linux > kernel? It's near to binary form (objdump -d is your friend). It's not. The difference is that we can always insert another asm statement anywhere (of course changing the way the function works) and still have it assemble and unless we goofed up it'll still run. mov ax,ax for instance won't do a thing. We can insert that anywhere we wish without changing anything. The assembler will take care of any relative jumps and pointers but with a binary firmware, try to insert a byte into it (not CHANGE one, INSERT one), even if you know just insert a NOP somewhere - and see what happens. // Stefan