3 ms·

Firmware can be closed source, but I’m fairly certain you have to open source the drivers too.

• monocasa 9y ago
  It's grey area. For instance, Nvidia's probably safe with their closed source driver. Since their driver was originally for Windows and simply ported to Linux mainly via an abstraction layer, it'd be pretty difficult to prove to a judge that they're 'derived from' the Linux codebase.
  • bonzini 9y ago
    It's not "being derived from", it's "being a derivative of", which in turn has a legal meaning that need not exactly coincide with the usual English meaning. That said, lawyers have certainly given their approval to the way Nvidia packages their driver, so it should be fine or at least very very hard to challenge.