Re: Licensing wlc_phy_radio.h and brcm80211 (was: [PATCH 3/3] b43: N-PHY: add 2055 radio regs)

[Dan Williams <dcbw@redhat.com>]

On Thu, 2010-10-14 at 10:17 -0700, Greg KH wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 07:06:00PM +0200, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
> > 2010/10/14 Greg KH <gregkh@suse.de>:
> > > On Thu, Oct 14, 2010 at 06:40:14PM +0200, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
> > >> W dniu 11 października 2010 18:24 użytkownik Gábor Stefanik
> > >> <netrolller.3d@gmail.com> napisał:
> > >> > Doesn't brcm80211 contain register names for B2055?
> > >>
> > >> I've checked brcm80211 and noticed defines in
> > >> drivers/staging/brcm80211/phy/wlc_phy_radio.h.
> > >>
> > >> Whole brcm80211 driver is licensed as:
> > >> MODULE_LICENSE("Dual BSD/GPL");
> > >>
> > >> Mentioned file contains following comments:
> > >> +/*
> > >> + * Copyright (c) 2010 Broadcom Corporation
> > >> + *
> > >> + * Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any
> > >> + * purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
> > >> + * copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.
> > >>
> > >> Our b43 driver is licensed as:
> > >> MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");
> > >> and I am not sure if permission above is actually GPL-compatible. The
> > >> best option would be to add defines from wlc_phy_radio.h and include
> > >> Broadcom's copyright. However comment above wants us to include info
> > >> about free copying/modifying/using which is not GPL-compatible.
> > >>
> > >> Is there any way to solve this issue?
> > >
> > > I don't understand, are you just wanting to use the names in the .h file
> > > for the registers?
> > 
> > Yes. I want to put lines like:
> > #define RADIO_2056_RX0				(0x6 << 12)
> > in my radio_2056.h
> 
> I don't think that bitfields are copyrightable :)

Right.  If you're just looking to include constants then you can copy
and paste them all over the place.  It might be nice give Broadcom a
shout-out in the header, but pure numbers like this (command
definitions, register values, bitfields, constants, etc) simply aren't
copyrightable, just like you can't copyright a telephone book.

Dan