[Replicant] [PATCH] Remove nonfree binary firmware data.

Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli GNUtoo at cyberdimension.org
Sun Mar 3 16:36:07 UTC 2019


Hi,

Thanks a lot for the patch.

I've added some comments below.

On Thu, 17 Jan 2019 23:27:56 +0100
Fil <fil.bergamo at riseup.net> wrote:

> [PATCH] Remove nonfree binary firmware data.

> This removes some hex-encoded binary-only files
> that have no license at all, thus being nonfree.
In that case the licenses is the GPLv2.

> These files contain testing data for the touch keys.
> They are not needed during normal operation.
> This does NOT solve any potential licensing issues with
> the other source files in the cypress directory.
Are the files data or code?

If they are code, what do you think of something like that:

> [PATCH] cypress: Remove unused firmwares

> The firmwares being removed consist of executable code
> which are being shipped as hexadecimal arrays inside the
> Linux source code.
>
> While the firmwares are GPLv2 as per Linux license, they
> lack corresponding source code.
> 
> Theses firmwares are proabaly meant for testing the touch keys during
> the production of the device.
> They are not needed during normal operation.
>
> This patch does NOT solve other potential licensing related issues
> with the other source files in the cypress directory.

If they are only data or if we don't know what they are it would be
best to mention it in the commit message too.

As I understand, in Linux, the request_firmware functions enable you to
load whatever you want inside a peripheral. So as a driver writer, you
could then also use that API not to load any code but configuration data
inside the peripheral.

Because of that, I think it's worth mentioning what theses "firmware"
really are if you're able to easily infer that from the driver source
code or from other ways.

Denis.
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