- From: Ian Abbott <abbotti_at_mev.co.uk>
- Date: Mon, 20 Feb 2006 10:40:46 +0000
On 20/02/2006 07:15, Guenter Gebhardt wrote: > Hello from Meilhaus Electronic, >> As the readme for the binary firmware says the support is broken: >> >> The me4000_firmware.bin file should be uploaded to your >> Meilhaus ME-4000 family board using the -i or --init-data option of >> comedi_config. However, at the time of this writing (2005-03-18) >> the driver support for firmware upload is broken. >> >> Without the upload of the firmware it seems impossible to run the >> driver. Does anyone have a clue how to make this card run? > > The ME-4000 firmware was provided by a headerfile when I released the driver > some years ago. This headerfile was removed because of licensing concerns. We > are interested to get the ME-4000 working again with COMEDI. We would provide > you with the firmware file if it is no more available on the COMEDI site. > > How is the copyright implemented for such firmware files? Ideally, the driver support for firmware upload should be fixed. Including the firmware in the module makes the module bigger. IMHO (IANAL), there is no legal reason why the firmware blob cannot be included within a .c or .h file as long as the firmware is freely distributable as a binary. (If the manufacturer only allowed the firmware to be distributed to owners of the card for example, then it would not be freely distributable and could not be distributed with Comedi in any form.) Comments in the source code should make it clear that the firmware blob is not covered by the GPL and is "merely aggregated" with the GPLed software. This Linux Weekly News article from last year may be of interest: http://lwn.net/Articles/130696/ -- -=( Ian Abbott _at_ MEV Ltd. E-mail: <abbotti_at_mev.co.uk> )=- -=( Tel: +44 (0)161 477 1898 FAX: +44 (0)161 718 3587 )=-
Received on 2006-02-20Z10:40:46