On 11/28/2016 07:34 PM, Kyle McMartin wrote:
On Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 9:44 AM, IgorMitsyanko
<igor.mitsyanko.os@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi Ben, Kyle,
could you please share what is the position of linux-firmware regarding
firmware binaries that include GPL components? Does it require entire GPL
components codebase be present in linux-firmware tree, or maybe having this
clause in license file is enough:
+Open Source Software. The Software may include components that are licensed
+pursuant to open source software (“Open Source Components”). Information
+regarding the Open Source Components included with the Software is
available
+upon request to oslegal@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. To the extent such Open Source
+Components are required to be licensed to you under the terms of a separate
+license (such as an open source license) then such other terms shall apply,
and
+nothing herein shall be deemed or interpreted to limit any rights you may
have
+under any such applicable license.
From technical perspective, size of the codebase used to build Quantenna
firmware is a few hundred MBs, it seems too much to include into
linux-firmware tree.
I don't have strong feelings one way or another. I'd prefer not having
several hundred
MB of source that's unlikely to change included in the linux-firmware
git tree. I'm also not
a lawyer, so I can't help you decide what would satisfy the
distribution clause of the GPLv2.
We already have one GPL firmware (carl9170fw) which includes the
source, but just references
a seperate toolchain for downloading, so it's only approximately 1MB
in size in the tree.
Is your firmware source really that large, or is it just including the
entire build toolchain with it?
It does include Linux environment with userspace tools, toolchain and
some other components that are not actually needed, you're right.
Maybe its possible to skip providing entire build environment, but
simply provide GPL code and patches to 3-d party opensource components?
Just state which version the patch is based on: for example, patch to
apply on top of Linux 3.14 sources, but no sources themselves. In this
case, it won't be possible to build firmware manually, but GPL code
modifications will be available.
regards,
--Kyle
On 11/11/2016 02:35 PM, Johannes Berg wrote:
Adding linux-firmware people to Cc, since presumably they don't
necessarily read linux-wireless...
Johannes, from that perspective, who are the "redistributors"?
Specifically, is linux-firmware git repository considered a
redistributor or its just hosting files? I mean, at what moment
someone else other then Quantenna will start to be legally obliged to
make GPL code used in firmware available for others?
Look, I don't know. I'd assume people who ship it, like any regular
distro, would be (re)distributors thereof. "Normal" (non-GPL) firmware
images come with a redistribution license, but that obviously can't
work here.
There's some info from Ben here regarding the carl9170 case:
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1605.3/01176.html
Personally I still hope that linux-firmware itself is not legally
concerned with what is the content of firmware its hosting, but looks
like there already was a precedent case with carl9170 driver and
we have to somehow deal with it.
That's really all I wanted to bring up. I'm not involved with the
linux-firmware git tree.
There still may be a difference though: Quantenna is semiconductor
company only, software
used on actual products based on Quantenna chipsets is released by
other
companies.
I just want to present our legal team with a clear case (and position
of
Linux maintainers) so that they can
work with it and make decision on how to proceed.
From technical perspective, as I mentioned, SDK is quite huge and
include a lot of opensource
components including full Linux, I don't think its reasonable to have
it
inside linux-firmware tree.
What are the options to share it other then providing it on request
basis:
- git repository
- store tarball somewhere on official website
Clearly that wasn't deemed appropriate for carl9170, so I don't see why
it'd be different here.
johannes
