Alessandro Selli <alessandroselli@???> wrote:

>> That's a non sequitur
>> The ONLY, and I mean ONLY bit that's relevant is the one about licence terms - and that's *relatively* easy to deal with one way or another as the licence terms are there to be read (either there are terms that allow you to redistribute or there aren't).
>> Claims for patent infringement, DMCA infringement, and so forth can be (and have been) thrown at completely open and free software.
>>
>
> Proprietary software is not encumbered only by restrictive licensing terms. Patents and anti-circumvention laws also apply that further restrict it's use, or the liberty to reverse-engineer it or to develop and distribute a compatible, functional free-software equivalent. DRM and DMCA were already used to restrict free distribution of derivative works, and claims of fair-use exemptions were not always successful against it.

I can't make out whether you are arguing with me or against me here.

The first bit is correct - most proprietary software is encumbered by patents, DMCA restrictions, and all that stuff - I almost said "all that carp" but that would be wrong since both patents and (to a much lesser extent) DMCA do have positive benefits, it's just that the systems (especially patents) are broken and not implemented in a way that supports what they were introduced for.
I did not suggest that proprietary software wasn't so encumbered.

What I did say is that effectively any argument about patent infringement, DMCA infringement, etc is moot - since (as you go on to show) both can and have been used against free & open software as well.

It is the licence restrictions that are the problem. And as Rick so well shows, **ALL** it needs to include a proprietary driver is suitable permission from the copyright holder. Really, all the other arguments (copyright, DMCA, etc) are moot *IF* the vendor gives you a licence to ship the code on your CD or in a repository. If they don't, then copyright law alone stops you doing so.

Of course, if you do have permission, then you can start discussing the options regarding separate non-free repositories etc.