Re: [RFC 00/10] R300 QEMU device V2

[Daniel P . Berrangé]

On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 04:13:18PM +0100, Philippe Mathieu-Daudé wrote:
> Cc'ing more.
> 
> On 11/27/19 4:05 PM, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 04:00:01PM +0100, Philippe Mathieu-Daudé wrote:
> > > Hi Daniel, Aaron.
> > > 
> > > On 11/26/19 3:19 PM, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > > > On Tue, Nov 26, 2019 at 06:14:27PM +0530, address@hidden wrote:
> > > > > From: Aaron Dominick <address@hidden>
> > > > > 
> > > > > I have removed the botched patches and have got the code working upto 
> > > > > the GART initialization.
> > > > > I am not sure how to implement the GART. I am guessing it should be 
> > > > > an IOMMU device but I think that is a bit much for an emulated card.
> > > > > The earlier problem of display probing seems to be resolved by using 
> > > > > an R300 bios I got from TechPowerUP's GPU database:
> > > > > 
> > > > >       https://www.techpowerup.com/vgabios/14509/14509
> > > > > I am NOT sure if we can distribute it in the QEMU source tree. If it
> > > > > does cause problems I can send a patch to remove it.
> > > > 
> > > > That site seems to be a repository of BIOS uploaded by arbitrary users,
> > > > with no information on what license terms might apply to the uploads.
> > > > 
> > > > We have to therefore assume the worst and treat the BIOS images on that
> > > > site as proprietary and not re-distributable, despite the fact that the
> > > > site itself is acting as a 3rd party distributor.
> > > 
> > > We can not redistribute this BIOS.
> > > 
> > > > IOW, we can't have this in QEMU git I'm afraid, unless someone can find
> > > > a trustworthy vendor source for the original image with accompanying
> > > > license information.
> > > 
> > > Daniel, I think there is no problem if Aaron contributes a model of the 
> > > R300
> > > device to QEMU, right? This doesn't involve redistributing any BIOS.
> > 
> > Having just the device impl doesn't cause any legal problems.
> > 
> > It does become a slight usability issue, as any users need to go and find
> > the suitable BIOS in order to use the device. No downstream OS vendors are
> > going to be able to distribute this BIOS either
> > 
> > I don't know if we have hit this problem before & if we have any
> > general policies about it ?
> 
> This appears to me the same case as a user downloading a proprietary
> driver/firmware at some vendor website, accepting the EULA, then using the
> driver within a QEMU VM.
> 
> No close source blob are redistributed, but users can still run them, and
> both party (the QEMU project, and the users) are legally correct, right? But
> IANAL.

Well in this case the user wouldn't be reading or accepting any EULA,
because this 3rd party site doesn't provide any such things with the
firmware it is re-distributing.

IOW, the only way the user can use this device is to download the
firmware from this 3rd site & ignore the lack of legal information
they provide about license/distribution rules.

Regards,
Daniel
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