Re: legal problem with cs89x0 driver

[Pavel Roskin]

On Mon, 2008-02-04 at 23:52 +0100, Robert Millan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> What do we do about the cs89x0 driver?  Remove it?
> 
>   https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?20720

I suggest that we ask Russell Nelson nicely to change the license to GPL
v2.  If he doesn't answer, or if the answer is anything less than an
unequivocal "yes", the driver should be removed and another version of
GNU GRUB released.

It's not like it's a clear case of a driver we cannot distribute.  A
good and well-paid lawyer could likely find several loopholes allowing
us to distribute the driver.  It could be argued that the code is
distributed with the Etherboot package, which is a part of GNU GRUB.  Or
that GPL supersedes the comments in the file.  Or that the original file
was a Linux driver under GPL, and Russell Nelson did not have exclusive
copyright to relicense it (the Linux driver mentions Donald Becker as
well).

However, I really doubt it's worth the trouble.  Either Russell Nelson
agrees to GPL with no conditions, or the driver is thrown out.  If there
are users who depend on it, it's their problem.  Let them care about
licenses, not us.

-- 
Regards,
Pavel Roskin