From: Aaron Lehmann <aaronl@vitelus.com>
To: "Albert D. Cahalan" <acahalan@cs.uml.edu>
Cc: adam@yggdrasil.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Fwd: Copyright infringement in linux/drivers/usb/serial/keyspan*fw.h
Date: Thu, 24 May 2001 23:03:21 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20010524230321.B23155@vitelus.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <200105250559.f4P5x80365151@saturn.cs.uml.edu>
On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 01:59:08AM -0400, Albert D. Cahalan wrote:
> If a driver writes 0x63f30e44 (4 bytes) to the card, no problem?
> Fine, how about 0x52e590a84fc8231e (8 bytes) then? You can see
> where this is leading I hope: 200 kB is perfectly fine.
Yes, I thought this way at first. However, the GPL is actually quite
explicit about defining source code:
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it.
That means that if you modify your string of bytes in a hex editor,
it's not a problem. But if (as in the case of firmware) you create the
strings from secret, undistributed source files, then according to the
GPL the strings are not source code. Since the source code is
unavailable, that makes them non-free. You can see where this leads...
next parent reply other threads:[~2001-05-25 6:03 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 37+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
[not found] <200105250559.f4P5x80365151@saturn.cs.uml.edu>
2001-05-25 6:03 ` Aaron Lehmann [this message]
2001-05-25 6:34 ` Fwd: Copyright infringement in linux/drivers/usb/serial/keyspan*fw.h Alexander Viro
2001-05-25 6:42 ` Aaron Lehmann
2001-05-25 6:58 ` Alexander Viro
2001-05-25 7:02 ` Andreas Jaeger
2001-05-25 7:05 ` Alexander Viro
2001-05-25 10:56 ` Erik Mouw
2001-05-25 11:56 ` Alexander Viro
2001-05-25 12:44 ` Pavel Machek
2001-05-29 1:38 Adam J. Richter
-- strict thread matches above, loose matches on Subject: below --
2001-05-26 11:09 Adam J. Richter
2001-05-26 3:10 Adam J. Richter
2001-05-26 11:00 ` James Sutherland
2001-05-29 0:03 ` Jamie Lokier
2001-05-29 0:24 ` Alan Cox
2001-05-29 0:55 ` Jamie Lokier
2001-05-26 2:34 Adam J. Richter
2001-05-26 2:38 ` Larry McVoy
2001-05-26 4:52 ` Jeff V. Merkey
2001-05-25 17:02 Adam J. Richter
2001-05-25 17:23 ` Jacob Luna Lundberg
2001-05-25 18:30 ` Larry McVoy
2001-05-25 22:30 ` Aaron Lehmann
2001-05-26 1:43 ` Larry McVoy
2001-05-25 19:14 ` Doug Ledford
2001-05-25 10:36 Adam J. Richter
2001-05-25 9:34 Adam J. Richter
2001-05-25 16:06 ` Doug Ledford
[not found] <mailman.990765360.7016.linux-kernel2news@redhat.com>
2001-05-25 6:02 ` Pete Zaitcev
[not found] <Pine.BSF.4.21.0105242155540.4849-100000@beppo.feral.com>
2001-05-25 5:57 ` Aaron Lehmann
2001-05-25 6:26 ` Matthew Jacob
2001-05-25 6:31 ` Aaron Lehmann
2001-05-25 4:34 Aaron Lehmann
2001-05-25 5:07 ` Greg KH
2001-05-25 10:00 ` John Cavan
2001-05-25 11:10 ` Alan Cox
2001-05-25 16:17 ` Alan Cox
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