From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (smtp1.linux-foundation.org [172.17.192.35]) by mail.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id DFF625A7 for ; Wed, 29 Jul 2015 16:36:02 +0000 (UTC) Received: from relay3-d.mail.gandi.net (relay3-d.mail.gandi.net [217.70.183.195]) by smtp1.linuxfoundation.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 6EB1F7C for ; Wed, 29 Jul 2015 16:36:02 +0000 (UTC) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 09:35:51 -0700 From: Josh Triplett To: James Bottomley Message-ID: <20150729163549.GA10114@x> References: <20436.1438090619@warthog.procyon.org.uk> <20150728183610.GB5307@cloud> <1438109061.5441.202.camel@HansenPartnership.com> <20150728185428.GD5307@cloud> <20150728213805.GA8786@kroah.com> <1438162660.26913.230.camel@infradead.org> <1438182000.2204.35.camel@HansenPartnership.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <1438182000.2204.35.camel@HansenPartnership.com> Cc: mcgrof@gmail.com, ksummit-discuss@lists.linuxfoundation.org, jkkm@jkkm.org Subject: Re: [Ksummit-discuss] [TECH TOPIC] Firmware signing List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 08:00:00AM -0700, James Bottomley wrote: > You're not out of the woods with this, though: the licence of the > firmware must permit arbitrary redistribution (and we've seen some that > don't), so it still has to be released under a freely redistributable > licence. And, obviously, there's a greyer area for Linux Specific > firmware, but the above applies in the general case. > > Distributions, like Debian, which have a definition for what they > consider to be "free software" may obviously conclude that binary blobs > don't satisfy that definition and therefore must be confined to the > non-free part of the distribution. We can certainly continue to ship > firmware separately as a courtesy for Debian to prevent the hardship of > having to banish the whole kernel to non-free (Or filter out the blobs.) For the record, this point (that firmware *itself* is not Free Software) was the only one I meant when I gave "licensing" as a reason to not compile in firmware. Feel free to continue the argument about the legality of a bzImage containing firmware blobs if you like, but that's not the point I was making. - Josh triplett