[Mageia-dev] Mageia repository sections, licenses, restrictions, firmware etc

Tue Oct 12 22:19:38 CEST 2010

On Tuesday 12 October 2010 17:34:34 Thierry Vignaud wrote:
+> On 12 October 2010 17:02, Anssi Hannula <anssi.hannula at iki.fi> wrote:
+> > Restrictions:
+> >  - packages can only depend or builddepend on packages in main itself
+> >  - packages need to have an open source license
+> >   o unwritten exception: various non-free but distributable firmware
+> > (see
+> >     kernel-firmware), for example radeon firmware and TG3 ethernet
+> > firmware are included despite their license; the selection is arbitrary
+> 
+> It's not an exception. Those that as a reasonable licence go in
+> main/release/kernel-firmware
+> Those w/o a license go into non-free/release/kernel-firmware-extra
+
+It would seem like that, but if you take a look in the included firmware files 
+you'll see that is not true (I also raised this on cooker@ once: "[RFC] Non-
+free firmware: main or non-free, or?").
+
+Some randomexamples:
+kernel-firmware:
+ - TG3 firmware: redistribution allowed, no modifications
+ - Sun Cassini: Unknown
+ - ti_usb_3410_5052: redistributable, no modifications.
+
+kernel-firmware-extra:
+ - agere firmware: redistributable, modifications allowed
+ - Atheros firmware: same
+ - usbdux: GPL with source code
+
+
+Basically 'kernel-firmware' contains all firmware that has at some point been 
+in the main kernel itself, while 'kernel-firmware-extra' contains all new 
+firmware.
+
+License does not factor in here.
+
+-- 
+Anssi Hannula
+