Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo

[Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On 12/30/2009 11:48 PM, Greg KH wrote:
>
> Heh, no, it does not, unless your BIOS, and your keyboard firmware, and
> your mouse firmware are all under a "free" license.  The only thing
> close to this type of machine is the OLPC, and even then, I don't think
> all the microcode for the box was ever released.
>
> So it's a pointless effort.

Actually, you describe the futility of the effort, not the pointlessness 
of the effort.  The fact that an effort is difficult or even futile does 
not make it pointless.  Some might disagree about it being impossible as 
well (there are open-source BIOS implementations, for example).

I'm sure the people who have such philosophies try to run free software 
anytime that it is possible.  They might not be able to run free 
software on their microwave, but if one came out with an open-source 
firmware they'd probably try to buy it.  I don't see this as being 
inconsistent, just practical.  The fact that they can't buy an 
open-source toaster or mouse doesn't mean that they can't use an 
open-source kernel.

>
> Hint, these firmware blobs do not run on your processor, so they have
> nothing to do with the license of your "system".

I'm not really sure where you're coming up with this argument.  The 
purpose of a license is to ALLOW you to do something you otherwise 
wouldn't be allowed to do.  Licenses don't actually take away rights, 
they grant them.  Laws do take away rights.  There is a law that says 
that if I write a program and give it to you, you can't copy it and give 
it to somebody else.  However, if I give you a license to copy the file 
under some conditions, then you can copy it legally if you follow those 
conditions.  Nowhere in copyright law is the word "processor" found or 
implied - the technology used to copy is also irrelevant except to the 
degree that it impacts fair use.

When you run software you aren't distributing it.  The concept of a 
use-license is a bit blurry - some people think that you don't need a 
license to use software, and other people think you do.  I don't believe 
that court rulings are as uniform on the topic of use as they are on the 
concept of copying.  In any case, the GPL v2 does not in any way attempt 
to restrict or grant the rights to use software - only to distribute it. 
  GPL v3 is a bit murkier in this regard, but irrelevant to a discussion 
on the kernel.

>
> Again, no, the GPLv2 covers the license of all of the code you run in
> the kernel package.

The concern isn't about RUNNING the software - it is about DISTRIBUTING 
the software.

> And again, you do not run those firmware images on your processor, so
> the point is moot.

Sure you do - you run them on your sound card processor, or your video 
capture card processor, or whatever.  However, the concern isn't running 
the software, it is redistributing it.

>
> And note, _I_ placed those images in the kernel image, after consulting
> lawyers about this issue, so it's not like I don't know what I am
> talking about here.

Did they say that the GPLv2 applied to the entire tarball containing the 
firmware?  Or did they simply state that building/running kernels using 
the tarball was legal?

Nobody is saying that the presence of the proprietary bits violates the 
GPL (v1, v2, OR v3).  You're not doing anything illegal.

However, the tarball is not licensed under the GPLv2.  I can't modify 
that tarball at will, for example, and redistribute it.  If I modify 10 
bytes in the middle of one of those firmware blobs, reassemble the 
tarball, and post that on my website, I can be sued by the maker of that 
firmware blob.  I haven't violated the GPL in doing any of that - the 
problem is that the firmware blob isn't licensed under the GPL.

The license to redistribute the gentoo-sources tarball is NOT GPLv2 - it 
is GPLv2 for 98% of it, and a mix of other licenses for the rest.  I 
don't own a keyspan usb serial device, but that doesn't mean I can 
modify the usa28.fw file and put it in a kernel tarball on my website, 
as the license for that file SPECIFICALLY states that I'm not allowed to 
do this and it is copyrighted.  Doing this doesn't violate the GPL, but 
the GPL doesn't apply to this file.

The point of this thread is that the gentoo-sources package is 
mislabeled as GPLv2 when the entire package is not licensed under GPL 
v2.  Nobody is saying that it is illegal to distribute gentoo-sources, 
only that it cannot be entirely distributed solely under GPLv2.