Aeluros 2005 PHY support in Linux-libre

Alexandre Oliva lxoliva at fsfla.org
Sun Dec 7 19:54:33 UTC 2008


On Dec  4, 2008, Divy Le Ray <divy at chelsio.com> wrote:

> Aeluros has provided us this sequence of register writes to
> initialize the PHY.  It was provided in a text file containing the
> pairs (register, value) cut'n'pasted in the driver.

I see.  Is it correct to state that they provided this sequence to you
as a GPL-licensed copyrighted work, without anything else that could
be regarded as 'corresponding sources'?

Note that I write 'GPL-licensed', rather than
GPL-compatibly-licensed'.  Say, if this sequence is offered under a
permissive GPL-compatible license, but it turns out to be object code
without corresponding sources, then distributing the combination of
that sequence with someone else's GPLed code amounts to copyright
infringement and, according to GPLv2, automatic termination of the
license.


Do you have any contact at Aeluros where I could obtain further
information about these numbers and try to clear this up?  My goal is
to add pointers to documentation, that would enable one to make sense
of the numbers and adapt them to one's needs, and, if these numbers
turn out to be machine code, try to obtain the corresponding sources.


Thank you very much for your continued cooperation and clarifications,

Best,

-- 
Alexandre Oliva           http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
Free Software Evangelist      Red Hat Brazil Compiler Engineer


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