> Having a binary firmware inside a GPL'd file seems to be (at least for some > people) a GPL violation, since the firmware source code should also be released > with GPL (please read [1] for a good article about this). The firmware is usually a separate program, running on a separate processor communicating by a standard API and is used by Linux, Windows and other OS's. Thats not quite the same as say the Nvidia driver. If it happens to keep the GPL zealots happier then fine, but there are good sound technical reasons for doing it - compiled in firmware isn't pageable - compiled in firmware can't be updated separately - it makes it really hard for end users told to "try the new firmware" - especially in the enterprise space. Clearly there are some cases that is less relevant - drivers where the firmware/OS pair must match such as aic7xxx where you don't really want firmware floating around loose. Alan -- To unsubscribe from this list: send an email with "unsubscribe kernelnewbies" to ecartis@xxxxxxxxxxxx Please read the FAQ at http://kernelnewbies.org/FAQ
