[Mageia-dev] Clarification on firmware licenses

Sat Jan 15 20:00:55 CET 2011

Hi all!
+
+Sorry for bringing this stuff up again, but it seems there is still some
+confusion regarding firmware licenses and to which repository put the
+various firmware packages.
+
+Clear cases:
+- open-source firmware with source code goes to core
+- firmware which doesn't allow modifications or has other similar
+  restrictions goes to non-free
+
+However, what to do with firmware that is licensed under a free license
+(e.g. BSD/GPL) that doesn't have source code?
+There are quite a few of those (see e.g. [1]).
+
+A quick look at other distros shows the following:
+
+Debian:
+ - All firmware without source code goes to non-free.
+ - No "GPL" firmware without source code at all, even in non-free
+   (presumably because if Debian would distribute those files, Debian
+    would have to provide the source code to comply with GPL, which it
+    can't do because the source code isn't available at all).
+ - No unknown-license firmware at all.
+
+Fedora:
+ - All redistributable firmware is allowed in main repo (there is no
+   non-free repo), even if non-free.
+ - Unknown-license firmware is allowed only if it was previously
+   distributed as part of kernel.
+
+Ubuntu:
+ - All redistributable firmware is apparently allowed in main, even if
+   non-free license with restrictions on modification. (this is in
+   contrary to Ubuntu licensing page [2] which says that modification
+   must be allowed for all packages in main).
+ - Unknown-license firmware that was previously in kernel is also in
+   main.
+ - All other firmware files with no license at all is also allowed,
+   in multiverse repository.
+
+Mandriva:
+ - No sane policy, half of them is in non-free and the other half in
+   main.
+ - Unknown-license firmware is allowed only if it was previously
+   distributed as part of kernel.
+
+
+[1]
+http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/dwmw2/linux-firmware.git;a=blob;f=WHENCE;h=d807e25c5515d05ffe5fe949b480ae661eb079fb;hb=HEAD
+
+[2] http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/licensing
+
+-- 
+Anssi Hannula
+