Package: linux-2.6
Version: 2.6.26-2
Severity: serious

Hi,

drivers/net/e100.c (licensed under GPLv2) contains three chunks of binary
firmware, such as:

/************************************************** ******/
/* Micro code for 8086:1229 Rev 8 */
/************************************************** ******/

[...]

#define D101M_B_RCVBUNDLE_UCODE
{
0x00550215, 0xFFFF0437, 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x06A70789, 0xFFFFFFFF, 0x0558FFFF,
[...]

As promised, based on the input from Steve Langasek on #494120 and other bugs,
I'm analizing whether the data falls under the cathegory of "small chunk of
non-code" for this and future bugs.

The chunks in question are clearly marked as code ("Micro code" in the comment,
and "UCODE" in the macro name). As for their size, they're much bigger than
the 64 B that rised a reasonable doubt in #494120. Each of them amounts to
536 B.

In this case it is obvious that Intel used other source code to generate that
file, which AFAICT isn't included in Linux.

Since the licensing terms allow redistribution, shipping them is not illegal
but is a DFSG violation.

Note:

The driver itself only seems to require the firmware blobs for a subset of
the devices it supports, as indicated by:

/* do not load u-code for ICH devices */
if (nic->flags & ich)
goto noloaducode;

which makes me believe ICH devices can be supported without non-free code.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: lenny/sid
APT prefers unstable
APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 2.6.18-6-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=ca_AD.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=ca_AD.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash



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Hi,

I already waited for this.

On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 12:21:45PM +0000, Robert Millan wrote:
> drivers/net/e100.c (licensed under GPLv2) contains three chunks of binary
> firmware, such as:
[...]


You don't expect us to remove the e100 driver, do you?

On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 04:03:32PM +0200, Frederik Schueler wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I already waited for this.
>
> On Fri, Aug 08, 2008 at 12:21:45PM +0000, Robert Millan wrote:
> > drivers/net/e100.c (licensed under GPLv2) contains three chunks of binary
> > firmware, such as:
> [...]
>
>
> You don't expect us to remove the e100 driver, do you?

Hi Frederik,

My expectation, in general, is that we can find a solution that fits within
the regulations of the project, and at the same time is as much satisfactory
as possible to all the parties involved, including you, me, and all of our
users.

More specifically about the e100 driver, the problem seems to be only with
those three blobs, not with the driver as a whole. I don't expect that
support is dropped for the e100 driver, not even for the blobs; I only
expect that the blobs aren't shipped in the 'main' pool. There are multiple
ways to archieve this, including (in no particular order):

- Move the whole driver to non-free.

- Move the blobs to non-free and have the driver load them.

- Reverse engineer the blobs.

I don't personally favour the first option, because it would move support
for ICH devices for which (AFAICT) the blobs aren't necessary. Because of
this I'm considering that I could help with the second one, although I'd
have to see the amount of work involved before I can make any promises
(and I don't have e100 hardware to test the results).

--
Robert Millan

The DRM opt-in fallacy: "Your data belongs to us. We will decide when (and
how) you may access your data; but nobody's threatening your freedom: we
still allow you to remove your data and not access it at all."



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