29 Apr
2004
29 Apr
'04
4:08 p.m.
Dear all,
Takashi from ALSA asked me to put him on Cc: in order to discuss the
whole issue in great depth - since he's overburden by e-mail (how I
can understand that!) he prefers to be able to follow the thing more
directly, hence the Cc:.
Let's keep discussing. My personal goal is to reach a wide consensus
amongst the community (counting the ALSA folks, the LAD people, and
possibly the FSFE - as well, of course, the AGNULA project people) on
this subject, and then decide for a route to follow.
What I don't want to do (and I can't do) is simply deciding by myself
to include possibly non-free software (if you consider firmware
software, which is another problem) inside AGNULA.
bye!
andrea
>>>> "Andrea" == Andrea Glorioso
<andrea.glorioso(a)agnula.org> writes:
[I'm putting the users@ and
developers(a)lists.agnula.org on Cc:
for informational purposes, and the team(a)fsfeurope.org to hear
the opinion of the FSFE on the matter. If LADders prefer not to
continue the discussion on linux-audio-dev, I'm sure nobody will
object to removing the latter list from the Cc:s :) ]
[For the list on Cc: we are talking about the
redistributability
and GNU GPL compliance of the alsa-firmware package, as well as
of firmware in general, I'd say]
>>>> "Thomas" == Thomas
Charbonnel <thomas(a)undata.org> writes:
> First of all thanks for Dyne:bolic :) All README
files from the
> alsa-firmware package grant copyright to the respective
> companies with the statement 'Redistributable under the GPL',
> so I guess the answer is yes. As far as I'm concerned we
> received several verbal and mail confirmations from RME that we
> could redistribute the files, and Matthias Carstens (who I just
> met last week) promised me an official written statement.
I absolutely don't want to start a legal debate
here, given that
it would probably be off topic and the issue has already been
(and is being) widely discussed on the debian-legal mailing
list, but please notice that AFAICT distributing binaries under
the GNU GPL license means that the distributor must
(a) Accompany [the program] with the complete
corresponding
machine-readable source code [...]
(b) Accompany [the program] with a written offer,
valid for at
least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more
than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a
complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code
[...]
(there is also option (c), see the GNU GPL v.2 for
further
details)
The point here is understanding what the `source'
of a piece of
firmware is.
The GNU GPL defines the `source' as the "the
preferred form of
the work for making modifications to it". Now the debate on
debian-legal has been whether the hex-expressed firmware
discovered in various kernel files was actually hand-modified by
the "distributor" with a hex editor, or a higher-level language
was used. If the latter is true, then the GNU GPL has been
breached (because I've never seen the source code of the
alsa-firmware package, please correct me if I'm wrong).
So, saying that the firmware is "distributable
under the GNU
GPL" is not sufficient `per se' to prove that the firmware
itself is Free Software.
My personal position is one of being a bit more
pragmatic. A
large part of the hardware we use actually has firmware embedded
into it, the only difference being that we don't see it and we
don't need to upload it (for example, AFAICR the Pentium IV
automatically translates standard Intel machine code into an
internal, risc-like, set of instructions - nobody is asking
Intel for the source code of *that* firmware).
The issue is thorny and I agree that a Live CD
without
alsa-firmware is not particularly efficient. On the other hand,
I do see legal (as well as ethical, if one wants to go down that
route) problems in distributing non-free firmware. I'd like to
understand the various options a bit more before launching
ourselves into the "users-need-it-so-lets-package-it" frenzy
(I'd rather tell users that they must bug the companies they buy
hardware from to release the `source code' of the firmware
needed to operate those cards under GNU/Linux, if we discover
that the firmware is actually non-free).
Usual caveats apply: IANAL, YMMV, etc, etc. If
anybody has a
deeper insight into the matter I'd love hearing it, since the
problem has been a PITA for us for a long time (see the
lists.agnula.org archives and devel.agnula.org `demudi'
project's bug lists if you are interested).
Bye,
-- Andrea Glorioso andrea.glorioso(a)agnula.org AGNULA
Technical
Manager http://www.agnula.org/ M: +39 333 820 5723 F: +39 (0)51
930 31 133 "Libre Audio, Libre Video, Libre Software: AGNULA"
--
Andrea Glorioso andrea.glorioso(a)agnula.org
AGNULA Technical Manager http://www.agnula.org/
M: +39 333 820 5723 F: +39 (0)51 930 31 133
"Libre Audio, Libre Video, Libre Software: AGNULA"