Fedora Freedom and linux-libre

[Alexandre Oliva]

On Jun 14, 2008, Alan Cox <alan at redhat.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 06:35:24PM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
>> So, before gNewSense cleaned up the kernel in a way that ended up
>> being called linux-libre, it didn't exist as a separate work to be
>> aggregated into other works and result in linux-2.6.25.tar.bz2?

> The tg3 firmware is in various things. The fact its usually shipped
> aggregated with other works seems to be irrelevant.

Say, if there was another work that stated "Distribution of this work
along with the tg3 firmware is strictly forbidden", would it still be
irrelevant?

>> > Bingo.. and copyright does not give you power over other works
>> 
>> Nobody's talking about power over other unrelated works.  We're

> Yes you are. At least thats what everyone else seems to think about firmware

Let's try again.  This is about the GPLed work.  I don't care if it's
firmware or anything else.  The point is it's GPL-incompatible,
therefore you have no permission to distribute the GPLed work along
with it as part of a collective/derivative work.  No objections to
distributing it otherwise.

>> > I do not need your permission to put your book on the same bookcase
>> > as someone elses book.
>> 
>> The result is clearly not a copyrightable work.

> Ditto firmware. Its a mechanical process not a creative one.

Oh, really?  Then why is it so different when you compare the way it's
done in tg3, bnx2x, and nouveau, just to cite a few examples that come
to mind.

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
FSFLA Board Member       ¡Sé Libre! => http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}