From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752512Ab1HAOiq (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Aug 2011 10:38:46 -0400 Received: from mta-out.inet.fi ([195.156.147.13]:35922 "EHLO jenni1.inet.fi" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1751693Ab1HAOil (ORCPT ); Mon, 1 Aug 2011 10:38:41 -0400 Date: Mon, 1 Aug 2011 17:31:08 +0300 From: Mikko Rapeli To: Alan Cox Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: Linux, binary blob and binary driver summary for vendors? Message-ID: <20110801143108.GU29803@nalle> Mail-Followup-To: Alan Cox , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org References: <20110801134212.GS29803@nalle> <20110801151302.7d56cd0d@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20110801151302.7d56cd0d@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Mon, Aug 01, 2011 at 03:13:02PM +0100, Alan Cox wrote: > On Mon, 1 Aug 2011 16:42:12 +0300 > Mikko Rapeli wrote: > > > What is a good and also technically detailed summary of the binary blob and > > driver issues with Linux kernel and GPL? > > > > I'd like to refer a vendor to some documentation regarding this instead > > writing a ton of text with IANAL everywhere. > > I would suggest they talk to the Linux Foundation. It's basically a legal > question around derivative works, and that's a lawyer question that tends > to need looking at by lawyers per piece of code. Good point, thanks. > Aside from that there are technical, marketing and PR things to consider. For the technical issues I've found Documentation/stable_api_nonsense.txt and these links: http://www.linuxfoundation.org/collaborate/workgroups/technical-advisory-board-tab/lfstatement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_blob These should be enough to start. Next question will hopefully be answered by the staging tree. -Mikko