Re: [PATCH] linux-firmware: Add firmware file for r8712u (RTL8192SU)

[Arnd Bergmann <arnd@arndb.de>]

On Tuesday 19 October 2010 20:21:53 Larry Finger wrote:
> 
> I was the one that added the drive, including the firmware file, to the kernel.
> I know the driver was developed legally. I took source files that contain a GPL
> license (including the firmware source) from the Realtek public site, cleaned up
> the driver, added a copyright for my changes, and got permission from Realtek to
> submit the result to the staging directory through Greg K-H. 

Ok, so if you have the firmware source, add a proper make file and the source along
with the binary file. You made it sound like the you only had the firmware as
a hexdump, which would not be possible under the GPLv2 section 3, which says
"The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making
modifications to it".

> > Hint: some files of the driver contain these "interesting" conditions:
> > 
> > /*
> >  * Copyright(c) 2008 - 2010 Realtek Corporation. All rights reserved.
> >  * Linux device driver for RTL8192U
> >  *
> >  * Based on the r8187 driver, which is:
> >  * Copyright 2004-2005 Andrea Merello <andreamrl@tiscali.it>, et al.
> >  * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
> >  * under the terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as
> >  * published by the Free Software Foundation.
> 
> That Merello copyright really has little to do with the current driver. As
> Realtek included it in their source, I left it in, but consider it to be an
> honorary citation.

That part is fine, what is not fine is the "All rights reserved" portion, which
contradicts the GPL.

	Arnd