On Jun 15, 2007, Bron Gondwana <brong@fastmail.fm> wrote:

quoted text
> #define Dell CFG_FAVOURITE_VENDOR

quoted text
> A Dell desktop machine is a piece of hardware.  The manufacturer has the
> source code (hypothetically) to the BIOS.  The BIOS is required for the
> machine to boot and run Linux.

quoted text
> Riddle me this (especially Alexandre, I'm just latching on to Ingo's
> post because it has the right hook to grab) - are Dell required to give
> out the source to the bios to enable people to have the same rights Dell
> engineers do to modify the behaviour of the system?

What is the license for the bios?  Does it say anything about 'no
further restrictions on the freedoms to modify and share the
software'?

Does it include any mechanisms to stop people from booting modified
versions of the Linux that ships with the machine?

-- 
Alexandre Oliva         http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/
FSF Latin America Board Member         http://www.fsfla.org/
Red Hat Compiler Engineer   aoliva@{redhat.com, gcc.gnu.org}
Free Software Evangelist  oliva@{lsd.ic.unicamp.br, gnu.org}
-
unsubscribe notice
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/