Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 19 Oct 2010 13:21:53 -0500 | From | Larry Finger <> | Subject | Re: [PATCH] linux-firmware: Add firmware file for r8712u (RTL8192SU) |
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On 10/19/2010 12:35 PM, Arnd Bergmann wrote: > On Tuesday 19 October 2010 18:26:23 Larry Finger wrote: >> The license information that I put into WHENCE is in the source-code file that >> contains the MODULE_LICENSE(GPL) statement. As the firmware header file is part >> of that set of files, I thought the GPL license would apply to all. Is that not >> so? If not, I'm not sure how to proceed. > > In theory, the person that added the firmware files to the kernel under the > terms of the GPL or anyone who distributed them before should be able to provide > the source code for the firmware. > > If you think that the driver has been developed legally, just ask the author > of the firmware for the source and add it to your patch.
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. Greg requested a TODO item to take the firmware currently embedded in a header file with 10,197 lines and 734,033 characters, extract it from the driver, and submit it to linux-firmware, which is what I'm trying to do now. Once the firmware is accepted and distros get the new version of linux-firmware, I will submit the changes that use the standard firmware-loading mechanism to get external firmware, and delete that large header file. Those changes are now in use on my system.
> If you don't think it was done correctly, try to get a license for redistributing > the firmware as binary and list the license terms in the WHENCE file. > > 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.
Larry
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