Bruno Wolff III wrote:
On Fri, Feb 01, 2013 at 13:43:39 -0500,
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx> wrote:
Don't be dismayed, that's why it's useful. It really keeps the driver from
being loaded, and that's a good thing. Why do you want this? Because Fedora
doesn't work as shipped with the majority of wireless adaptors, who's vendors
have a license which fails the Fedora purity test. By blocking the unclean
adaptor completely you can plug in a USB model which will work well enough to
download the drivers which work and install them.
You mean a license that allows Fedora to redistribute the firmware legally.
From the wiki page covering acceptible licenses covering binary firmware:
The Fedora Project considers a firmware license acceptable if:
it allows some form of royalty-free use, subject to restrictions that the
Fedora Project has determined are acceptable for firmware licenses (see
below), and
it does not restrict redistribution in ways that would make a software
license unacceptable under Fedora licensing guidelines, except by:
requiring that the firmware be redistributed only as incorporated in
the redistributor's product (or as a maintenance update for existing end users
of the redistributor's product), possibly limited further to those products of
the redistributor that support or contain the hardware associated with the
licensed firmware; and
requiring the redistributor to pass on or impose conditions on users
that are no more restrictive than those authorized by this Fedora firmware
licensing policy.
A non-exhaustive list of restrictions on use that Fedora considers acceptable
for firmware licenses are:
any restrictions that are found in software licenses that are acceptable
for Fedora;
prohibitions on modification;
prohibitions on reverse engineering, disassembly or decompilation;
restricting use to use in conjunction with the hardware associated with
the firmware license.
Claiming that there is purity test involved, suggests that Fedora is not
allowing licenses for firmware that could be redistributed by the project. For
issues with being able to firmware, please direct complaints to the companies
that make the products using it.
You have used six paragraphs for what you characterize as "non-exhaustive"
description of the license policy. If you have a short term which will be
immediately recognizable to most people as related to issues with the terms of
license rather than the legality of redistribution, please let me know. I used
the term because it was ive ad less offensve thn one I used a few years ago and
regretted.
You also use that phrase when indicating why Fedora doesn't allow some
packages being included because of their licenses. As long as there is source
that is covered by a free license, the license shouldn't be a problem. There
are some non-free licenses that if were included, would prevent people from
using Fedora in certain ways. (Mostly this would be packages that can't be
used commercially.) The project has a policy not to do this.
The other big blocker is patents and that doesn't have to do with licenses,
but rather being able to legally redistribute software that infringe upon
software patents.
As noted above, I'm aware.
If you are interested in packages that have non-free licenses, you can take a
look at the rpmfusion nonfree repo.
If you are interested in packages that are free, but can't legally be
redistributed in some locations because of software patents, take a look at
the rpmfusion free repo.
If I had a working wifi driver I could do that, but then I wouldn't need to do
that. If rpmfusion could put the drivers for the kernel on the Live-CD and
Install DVD, which are not the same as are in "updates" (current) kernels, a
user could just put every one in a directory, run createrepo, and put the result
in a directory on the install media. Then Fedora would not be distributing the
drivers, users able to use the drivers could get what they need quickly, and we
wouldn't be looking for all the bits which match the install kernel but not the
one used to burn the install media.
The process is cumbersome because the last bit of effort needed to get the
needed drivers in one place for easy use has not yet been made.
--
Bill Davidsen <davidsen@xxxxxxx>
We are not out of the woods yet, but we know the direction and have
taken the first step. The steps are many, but finite in number, and if
we persevere we will reach our destination. -me, 2010
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