On Fri, 2014-03-14 at 05:36 -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:

On Fri, Mar 14, 2014 at 1:45 AM, Kalle Valo [off-list ref] wrote:

[...]

quoted

+ NO LICENSES OR OTHER RIGHTS,
+WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, BASED ON ESTOPPEL OR OTHERWISE, ARE GRANTED
+TO ANY PARTY'S PATENTS, PATENT APPLICATIONS, OR PATENTABLE INVENTIONS
+BY VIRTUE OF THIS LICENSE OR THE DELIVERY OR PROVISION BY QUALCOMM
+ATHEROS, INC. OF THE SOFTWARE.

This -- however is new to linux-firmware -- and I hereby raise a big
red fucking flag. All other licenses on linux-firmware provide at the
very least a limited patent grant. What makes Qualcomm special ?

[...]

There are several licence texts that don't mention patents at all.  I'm
assuming that the companies submitting firmware for inclusion in Linux
or linux-firmware do intend to grant whatever licences are required to
distribute it to end users.

Several licence texts explicitly exclude patent licences relating to any
*other* products of the same company, but that's quite redundant.

However this language seems to explicitly exclude *any* patent licence.
You're right to raise a red flag because, assuming Qualcomm does have
patents that cover the firmware alone, this seems to disallow
redistribution in whatever jurisdictions those patents apply.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Computers are not intelligent.	They only think they are.