[Prism54-devel] Re: [Prism54 on Knoppix?] Re: Kontaktformular [QK]

[Luis R. Rodriguez]

Hello Klaus,

On Wed, Feb 04, 2004 at 12:05:25AM +0100, Klaus Knopper wrote:
> Hi, it's me again,
> 
> I will most likely include the prism54 driver in Knoppix 3.4 (CeBit
> release), possibly also in the upcoming 3.3 update. Just a few more
> questions:
> 
> 1. Is there a dpkg-buildpackage'able debian source package available yet for
>  1.1 the GPL portion (i.e. the kernel modules itself)

Not that I am aware of. Feel free to make one. If you don't want to
mantain it I can volunteer to since I currently mantain the automatic
patch and tarball process anyway (updated every half hour through cron).

That is, I can add to cron an automated dpkg-buildpackage grabing the latest source
directly from cvs. 

>  1.2 the (yet unclear to me licensed) firmware files for /usr/lib/hotplug/firmware?

<see bellow>

>
> If no, I can still make these packages from your source tarballs. Just
> want to avoid duplicate work.

Great!

> On Mon, Jan 19, 2004 at 10:47:12PM -0500, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> > Prism54 drivers source code is 100% GPL. We just recently completed that
> > aspect of the licence. There is an exception and that is of the firmware.
> > The license agreements for the firmware are the same ones you get for the
> > equivalent windows driver. We provide the firmware on our website and
> > not as part of our package. The firmware is available on our website as a
> > means of making things easier for Linux users.
> 
> 2. What exactly does the "license agreements for the firmware are the
> same ones you get for the equivalent windows driver" say? Is the binary
> driver freely distributable for non-commercial as well as commercial
> use? Where can I find this license agreement for inclusion in
> an appropriate "non-free" debian package?

I've downloaded a few windows drivers to extract their license but I
haven't yet seen any. I remember Dlink's old dwl-g650 A1 driver did used
to have a license agreement, I just can't find it, nor do I have windows
to run some exe's to see what are in them. 

Intersil never really gave us clearance to redistribute the firmware but
I just assumed it'd be rational to at least provide them in our
website. The way it seems to work is that manufacturers buy
chipsets from intersil, intersil/Globespanvirata/Conexant 
then provides them with a new shiny firmware (hence the different 
firmware versions you see on our website's firmware/ dir) and these
manufacturers then write a driver and redistribute the firmware with
their driver. The driver then has the manufactuer's own license.

So basically there is no direct license associated to the firmware,
except the ones attached to with the Windows Drivers. We can all
try to look for the less restrictive one to see if we can at least
redistribute the files (ALL HELP IS WELCOMED).

> > The latest linux-hotplug package is required since it has firmare.agent.
> > Currently Debian unstable has it and most distributions are picking it up
> > (a lot of them, thanks to us ;).
> 
> Knoppix uses the hotplug package from Debian/unstable for exactly this
> reason.

Great!

> > Our inclusion to the Linux Kernel is just a matter of time. Should you
> > choose to include the driver in a Knoppix release we'll push so we get a
> > test release out that is decent for usage.
> 
> Knoppix is "experimental software" anyways, you do not have to push
> anything special. But if you could point me at a "more or less stable
> and recommended" snapshot if the driver (and firmware files), it would
> make things easier for me because I have to answer less complaints from
> end users. ;-)

We'll try our best. I'll keep you posted on the firmware license
findings.

	Luis