Messages in this thread | | | Date | Thu, 24 May 2001 23:03:21 -0700 | From | Aaron Lehmann <> | Subject | Re: Fwd: Copyright infringement in linux/drivers/usb/serial/keyspan*fw.h |
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On Fri, May 25, 2001 at 01:59:08AM -0400, Albert D. Cahalan wrote: > If a driver writes 0x63f30e44 (4 bytes) to the card, no problem? > Fine, how about 0x52e590a84fc8231e (8 bytes) then? You can see > where this is leading I hope: 200 kB is perfectly fine.
Yes, I thought this way at first. However, the GPL is actually quite explicit about defining source code: The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it.
That means that if you modify your string of bytes in a hex editor, it's not a problem. But if (as in the case of firmware) you create the strings from secret, undistributed source files, then according to the GPL the strings are not source code. Since the source code is unavailable, that makes them non-free. You can see where this leads... - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
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