From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S262562AbTEFL0a (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 May 2003 07:26:30 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S262563AbTEFL0a (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 May 2003 07:26:30 -0400 Received: from mailsrv1-tu0.sanger.ac.uk ([193.62.206.128]:55056 "EHLO mailsrv1.sanger.ac.uk") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262562AbTEFL00 (ORCPT ); Tue, 6 May 2003 07:26:26 -0400 Message-ID: <3EB79ECE.4010709@thekelleys.org.uk> Date: Tue, 06 May 2003 12:38:54 +0100 From: Simon Kelley User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.2.1) Gecko/20030121 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Binary firmware in the kernel - licensing issues. Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org I'm currently working on the drivers for Atmel PCMCIA and PCI wireless adaptors with the aim of getting up to snuff for inclusion in the mainline kernel. I'm working from source drivers released by Atmel themselves last year under the GPL so there are no problems with the code - each source file from Atmel has a GPL notice at the top. BUT. These things need firmware loaded, at least the ones without built-in flash. The Atmel drivers come with binary firmware as header files full of hex, with the following notice. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright (c) 1999-2000 by Atmel Corporation This software is copyrighted by and is the sole property of Atmel Corporation. All rights, title, ownership, or other interests in the software remain the property of Atmel Corporation. This software may only be used in accordance with the corresponding license agreement. Any un-authorized use, duplication, transmission, distribution, or disclosure of this software is expressly forbidden. This Copyright notice may not be removed or modified without prior written consent of Atmel Corporation. Atmel Corporation, Inc. reserves the right to modify this software without notice. Atmel Corporation. 2325 Orchard Parkway literature@atmel.com San Jose, CA 95131 http://www.atmel.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ It isn't clear what the license agreement referred to in the above actually is, but I don't think it's reasonable to just assume it's the GPL and shove these files into the kernel as-is. I shall contact Atmel for advice and clarification but my question for the list is, what should I ask them to do? It's unlikely that they will release the source to the firmware and even if they did I wouldn't want firmware source in the kernel tree since the kernel-build toolchain won't be enough to build the firmware. What permissions do they have to give to make including this stuff legal and compatible with the rest of the kernel? Given the current SCO-IBM situation I don't want to be responsible for introducing any legally questionable IP into the kernel tree. This situation must have come up before, how was it solved then? Cheers, Simon.