[Cc-bizcom] BSD + distributing relicensed proprietary binaries

Marshall Van Alstyne marshall at MIT.EDU
Mon Nov 1 19:41:36 EST 2004


News from today's Slashdot on distributing proprietary firmware binaries 
with a BSD variant:

"The Age has a story up about how the <http://www.openbsd.org/>OpenBSD 
community has been 
<http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/29/1098992287663.html>contacting 
wireless chipset vendors to license their 
<http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=109889560011966&w=2>firmware 
binaries under terms that would allow for free redistribution. This is 
important, because even with existing <http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/>GPL 
and <http://damien.bergamini.free.fr/ipw/>BSD licensed drivers for these 
chipsets, the drivers don't function without first loading 
<http://ipw2200.sourceforge.net/firmware.php?fid=2>onerously licensed 
firmware binaries which can only be acquired from the vendor, not shipped 
by an OSS provider."
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