Messages in this thread | | | From | Arnd Bergmann <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] linux-firmware: Add firmware file for r8712u (RTL8192SU) | Date | Tue, 19 Oct 2010 22:29:30 +0200 |
| |
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
| |