RE: Binary firmware in the kernel - licensing issues.

[Downing, Thomas]

-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Cox [mailto:[e-mail]]
>
> So you can't distribute it at all unless there is other paperwork
> involved.
>
>> Given the current SCO-IBM situation I don't want to be responsible for
>> introducing any legally questionable IP into the kernel tree.
>> 
>> This situation must have come up before, how was it solved then?
>
> The easiest approach is to do the firmware load from userspace - which
> also keeps the driver size down and makes updating the firmware images
> easier for end users.
>
> (Debian as policy will rip the firmware out anyway regardless of what
> Linus does btw)
>
> The hotplug interface can be used to handle this.

I am writing a USB driver for a well-known vendor's USB device which
requires firmware download.  The vendor is considering allowing me
to publish the driver under GPL.  They will _not_ allow me to include
the binary firmware under any conditions.

So I will be loading the firmware from userspace - but the user must
obtain the firmware as a part of a larger application package.
(Complete crap IMO, but what can I do...)

PS:  what would be the preferred place to load the firmware
from, if no option giving the firmware pathname is passed to the 
module at load time?