10-05-2016, 06:56 PM
(10-05-2016, 07:28 AM)ssvb Wrote: I'm not a lawyer myself. But there are two license related problems here:
1. The HDMI output kernel driver is a binary blob, which is linked with the rest of the GPL licensed code in the kernel. It is unrelated to 3D graphics and Mali, but still something that preferably should be resolved.
2. The Mali userland blob is a proprietary code. There are no GPL problems here because it is living in the userland. And ARM actually has a permissive license for this blob (see http://malideveloper.arm.com/resources/d...e-drivers/ for more details). The only license related problem here is that Allwinner people have removed this ARM's license notice from the package that they passed over to us. I have no idea why they have done this (of course ARM's license notice explicitly forbids removing the license notice from the package), but just adding the missing license notice back should resolve everything.
Thanks for that ssvb... I was hoping someone else would think the system library exception applied. The GPL 3 definition is certainly easier to understand on that point, detailing that a system library's source is not included in the corresponding source that must be supplied with the code. I wonder if the reason for the missing license has something to do with hangovers from r5 of the code, as ARM state that they changed the license in January 2016 to make it more permissive, and allow redistribution of the code.