From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1757188Ab0JSU3f (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:29:35 -0400 Received: from moutng.kundenserver.de ([212.227.17.8]:59529 "EHLO moutng.kundenserver.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1753408Ab0JSU3e (ORCPT ); Tue, 19 Oct 2010 16:29:34 -0400 From: Arnd Bergmann To: Larry Finger Subject: Re: [PATCH] linux-firmware: Add firmware file for r8712u (RTL8192SU) Date: Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:29:30 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (Linux/2.6.36-rc7-next-20101015+; KDE/4.5.1; x86_64; ; ) Cc: David Woodhouse , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <4cbdbf3b.Ek+PDAiA1jX27HRq%Larry.Finger@lwfinger.net> <201010191935.40788.arnd@arndb.de> <4CBDE1C1.4020204@lwfinger.net> In-Reply-To: <4CBDE1C1.4020204@lwfinger.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="utf-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201010192229.30133.arnd@arndb.de> X-Provags-ID: V02:K0:lcX3SJJTn291oSDuXG6JYjZOy8SK9yo5Ew1rLCXKMaD Y4vaBmhZKMxqhFAbnTz1nA/5sQ/a7al6E/MVRA6uEP8RY3RmSv pxXGfNRc1nryoitblKAB/BuNCEngnpqeVsU+w1/zjKgReMHl7r HCDSACa7FcMWL5Jz7NEVoCm6F1aRw7fractycoM8zgRVkY4pXa c8VmJ7ELKY7I7wGf2YdKg== Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org 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 , 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