[Savannah-hackers] [ 101927 ] New Project containing binary firmware ?

[nobody]

Support Request #101927, was updated on Mon 03/10/03 at 01:09
You can respond by visiting: 
http://savannah.gnu.org/support/?func=detailsupport&support_id=101927&group_id=11

Category: None
Status: Open
Priority: 3
Summary: New Project containing binary firmware ?

By: yeupou
Date: Mon 03/10/03 at 11:59
Logged In: YES 
user_id=1896
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Konqueror/3.1; Linux 2.4.21-pre4; i686; fr, 
address@hidden)

Hi, 
 
About the mail problem, it will be fixed. 
 
About your project, I'm not sure to understand wholy the story : 
 - Have Atmel any connection with the firm that produce the 
device? 
 - Is the firmware binary provided by this firm? 
 - If so, does Atmel have the source for this binary? 
 - If not, in which headers Atmel added the GPL? 
 
The easier answer is to tell you what would be problematic for 
your project to be hosted here: 
 - Dependancy on non-free software or driver... 

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By: joerg.albert
Date: Mon 03/10/03 at 01:09
Logged In: NO 
Browser: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.0rc3) Gecko/20020523

Hi,

I'd like to create a new project at savannah.nongnu.org
for a Linux kernel driver of a WLAN USB adapter.

The problem is that this driver contains binary only
firmware for the device (because the device needs a
firmware download after every power-on). Atmel
originally put the driver into open source (see
http://sourceforge.net/projects/atmelwlandriver/) and
added a GPL to the firmware header files as well.

This was, IMHO, a mistake, as they have shown no
intention to contribute the source code of the firmware
to the public.
On the other hand it's difficult to change the license
type after the first public release and AFAIK only
Atmel can do so.

Is it possible to host this project at your site?

Regards,
Jörg Albert.

P.S. I tried to mail this to
address@hidden as pointed out on the
"Contact Us" web page. Got the error

Hi. This is the qmail-send program at mail.gmx.net.
I'm afraid I wasn't able to deliver your message to the
following addresses.
This is a permanent error; I've given up. Sorry it
didn't work out.

<address@hidden>:
199.232.76.166_does_not_like_recipient./Remote_host_said:_550_unknown_user/Giving_up_on_199.2
32.76.166./


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You can respond by visiting: 
http://savannah.gnu.org/support/?func=detailsupport&support_id=101927&group_id=11