Subject: Re: bnx2 dirver's firmware images

From: maximilian attems <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:51:03 +0200

hello dave,

i appreciate a lot your opinon, but please cool down.
this is not a four spin on your beloved pipe. :)

On Wed, Sep 19, 2007 at 09:38:32AM -0700, David Miller wrote:
> From: maximilian attems <[email-masked]>
> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:33:18 +0200
> 
> > we have to strip the firmware for Debian for the upcoming Lenny release.
> 
> Why do you "have to"?  The vendor has given you explicit rights
> to distribute it:
> 
>  * Firmware is:
>  *	Derived from proprietary unpublished source code,
>  *	Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Broadcom Corporation.
>  *
>  *	Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware
>  *	data in hexadecimal or equivalent format, provided this copyright
>  *	notice is accompanying it.

afair the trouble is that it does not give permission to change
unlike some other gpl or bsd licensed blob.
so it is dfsg non-free and not suitable for main distribution.
 
> This whole firmware stripping thing in debian is beyond rediculious
> and only serves to hurt users.

i'm not of the d-legal department,
but seeing free firmwares would be cool.

-- 
maks