From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932765AbVHTAci (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:32:38 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932774AbVHTAci (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:32:38 -0400 Received: from mustang.oldcity.dca.net ([216.158.38.3]:44466 "HELO mustang.oldcity.dca.net") by vger.kernel.org with SMTP id S932765AbVHTAch (ORCPT ); Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:32:37 -0400 Subject: Re: Atheros and rt2x00 driver From: Lee Revell To: Daniel J Blueman Cc: Linux Kernel , rt2400-general@lists.sourceforge.net In-Reply-To: <6278d22205081711115b404a9b@mail.gmail.com> References: <6278d22205081711115b404a9b@mail.gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:32:33 -0400 Message-Id: <1124497953.25424.112.camel@mindpipe> Mime-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.3.7 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, 2005-08-17 at 19:11 +0100, Daniel J Blueman wrote: > Ralink Tech (www.ralink.com.tw) took a design decision to incorporate > the firmware into an EEPROM on-board, allowing their driver to be > GPL'd Binary only firmware and firmware loading is perfectly compatible with the GPL, as long as the vendor includes a license to redistribute the firmware. The problem was that vendors were distributing the firmware embedded in the driver code as a big hex string, without a separate license, which made the firmware fall under the GPL, which make the whole kernel undistributable as there's no source code for the firmware. Lee