Vendor only distributable packages - was " Kernel 2059 from Dave Jones fixes nvidia.ko loading"

[Jeff Vian]

On Thu, 2006-03-23 at 11:27 +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 17:55 -0600, Jeff Vian wrote:
> > On Wed, 2006-03-22 at 09:23 +0100, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 16:37 -0600, John Morris wrote:
> > > > On Tue, 2006-03-21 at 09:03, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> > > > 
> > > > > in some jurisdictions there is a legal precedent for linking to
> > > > > "illegal" content to be just as bad as distributing it. Now I'm not
> > > > > saying that the flash plugin is illegal (it's not afaik) but the
> > > > > parallel is enough to scare many lawyers ;)
> > > > 
> > > > I really doubt there could be legal implications to pointing to an ftp
> > > > site.  Even if they prefer people go to the webpage there has been
> > > > enough cases now about linking to pretty much settle that issue.
> > > > 
> > > > But has anyone at RH tried asking for permission?  Including preset repo
> > > > lines for livna is right out, both legally and morally for the mission
> > > > of Fedora.  But what about the idea of a legal but non-free catagory for
> > > > Flash, Acrobat, Nvidia, ATI, etc? 
> > > 
> > > what makes you think NVidia and ATI are legal?
> > > 
> > Since the vendor(s) makes them available for free download I would guess
> > there is no question of legality here.
> > 
> 
> so if I put up a copy of The Matrix DVD for free download there is no
> question of legality either?
> (hint: not all the code that created the nvidia .ko file is owned by
> NVidia, some of it comes from the kernel. Same and even more so for ATI)
> 
YOU are not the originating vendor/producer for that DVD.  You cannot
legally distribute it.
nVidia is the originating vendor/producer for their binary driver. They
can legally distribute it if they choose.
Your comparison is not even in the same league.

And, no, they do not distribute the part that comes from the kernel
headers.  That is compiled in by you (or the rpm packager if you get an
rpm from someone like livna).