acenic (drivers/net):

 * Copyright 1998-2002 by Jes Sorensen, <jes@trained-monkey.org>.
 ''''' Generated by genfw.c '''''
 ACENIC DRIVER
 P:      Jes Sorensen
 M:      jes@trained-monkey.org
 L:      linux-acenic@sunsite.dk
 S:      Maintained

 according to freebsd's if_ti.c:
 * Alteon Networks Tigon PCI gigabit ethernet driver for ["FreeBSD"].
 * Manuals, sample driver and firmware source kits are available
 * from http://www.alteon.com/support/openkits.
 * Written by Bill Paul <wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu>
 * The firmware for the Tigon 1 and 2 ["NICs"] is compiled directly into
 * this driver by #including it as a C header file. This bloats the
 * driver somewhat, but it's the easiest method considering that the
 * driver code and firmware code need to be kept in sync. The source
 * for the firmware is not provided with the ["FreeBSD"] distribution since
 * compiling it requires a GNU toolchain targeted for mips-sgi-irix5.3.

 wpaul@ctr.columbia.edu - bounced
 wpaul@["FreeBSD"].org - awaiting response (apr 5)
 william.paul@windriver.com - awaiting response (apr 5)

 acenic firmware source is here:
 http://alteon.shareable.org/
 Quoth the page: "Look at the source files yourself to understand any
 licensing restrictions on their use.  Alteon's license may be summarised
 like this: you may share and develop the firmware, but it is only for use
 with Alteon NIC products."

 More useful acenic info:
 http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/12/msg00078.html
 acenic firmware 'license': http://web.archive.org/web/20000711071330/sanjose.alteon.com/license-agree.shtml
 Definitely not DFSG-free, but it appears distributable at least.. comments?
 -dil

 Jes Sorensen, the arcenic driver author, wrote :
 As I stated, I got it from Alteon with a written permission to
 distribute it as part of the GPL driver.
 --
 svenl

dabusb (drivers/usb/media):

 *      Copyright (C) 1999  Deti Fliegl (deti@fliegl.de)
 deti@fliegl.de - awaiting response (apr 4, apr 13)   -dil

dgrs (drivers/net):

 *      Author: Rick Richardson, rick@remotepoint.com
 *      Derived from the ["SVR4"].2 (UnixWare) driver for the same card.
 *      Copyright 1995-1996 Digi International Inc.
 *      For information on purchasing a RightSwitch SE-4 or SE-6
 *      board, please contact Digi's sales department at 1-612-912-3444
 *      or 1-800-DIGIBRD.  Outside the U.S., please check our Web page
 *      at http://www.dgii.com for sales offices worldwide.
 DIGI RIGHTSWITCH NETWORK DRIVER
 P:      Rick Richardson
 L:      linux-net@vger.kernel.org
 W:      http://www.digi.com
 S:      Orphaned

 rick@remotepoint.com - bounced
 rickr@mn.rr.com - response received (apr 5); firmware license is proprietary.
 awaiting specific license redistribution rights.  -dil

emi62 (drivers/usb/misc):

 * Copyright (C) 2002
 *      Tapio Laxstr\uffffm (tapio.laxstrom@iptime.fi)
 * This file is generated from three different files, provided by Emagic.

 copyright@apple.com - awaiting response (apr 13)  -dil

keyspan (drivers/usb/serial):

  (C) Copyright (C) 2000-2001   Hugh Blemings <hugh@blemings.org>
  (C) Copyright (C) 2002        Greg Kroah-Hartman <greg@kroah.com>
  See http://misc.nu/hugh/keyspan.html for more information.

        The firmware contained herein as keyspan_*.h is

                Copyright (C) 1999-2001
                Keyspan, A division of InnoSys Incorporated ("Keyspan")

        as an unpublished work. This notice does not imply unrestricted or
        public access to the source code from which this firmware image is
        derived.  Except as noted below this firmware image may not be
        reproduced, used, sold or transferred to any third party without
        Keyspan's prior written consent.  All Rights Reserved.

        Permission is hereby granted for the distribution of this firmware
        image as part of a Linux or other Open Source operating system kernel
        in text or binary form as required.

        This firmware may not be modified and may only be used with
        Keyspan hardware.  Distribution and/or Modification of the
        keyspan.c driver which includes this firmware, in whole or in
        part, requires the inclusion of this statement."

 This looks good; the only potentially hairy bit is the part about being distributed as part of a Linux or other Free OS kernel.  Is shipping it as a separate driver, with other Linux drivers (ie, shipping a part of an OS kernel) permitted?  -dil

qla2xxx (drivers/scsi):

 * Copyright (C) 2003 Christoph Hellwig.
 * Copyright (C) 2003-2004 ["QLogic"] Corporation
 * (www.qlogic.com)
 QLOGIC ["QLA2XXX"] FC-SCSI DRIVER
 P:      Andrew Vasquez
 M:      andrew.vasquez@qlogic.com 
 L:      linux-scsi@vger.kernel.org
 S:      Supported

 freebsd has firmware for qla separated out and marked under BSD license; is
 this valid?  can we just say the firmware blobs are BSD licensed?
 http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ispfw/      -dil

smctr (drivers/net/tokenring):

 * The firmware this driver downloads into the tokenring card is a
 * separate program and is not GPL'd source code, even though the Linux
 * side driver and the routine that loads this data into the card are.
 *
 * This firmware is licensed to you strictly for use in conjunction
 * with the use of SMC TokenRing adapters. There is no waranty
 * expressed or implied about its fitness for any purpose.
 *  - This is an 8K binary image. (MCT.BIN v6.3C1 03/01/95)
 *  - Jay Schulist <jschlst@samba.org>

 Is this licensing ok? -dil

tg3 (drivers/net):

 * Copyright (C) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 David S. Miller (davem@redhat.com)
 * Copyright (C) 2001 Jeff Garzik (jgarzik@pobox.com)
 * Copyright (C) 2004 Sun Microsystems Inc.
 * Firmware is:
 *      Copyright (C) 2000-2003 Broadcom Corporation.

   http://www.broadcom.com/drivers/driver-sla.php?driver=570x-Linux

   The Broadcom Linux Ethernet drivers are licensed under the GNU GPL.
   The full text of the license is available in the driver archive.
    
 downloading the driver now, but don't know what their relationship to the
 mainline kernel version is.

 Also, Jeff Garzik was the one doing the initial checkin, but didn't respond to
 a direct question asking where the firmware came from, and under which licence.

 Response from Broadcom: I have forwarded this request to our development team
 as well as our line product manager. I will inform you, once a decision is made

 Comment from Eric W. Biederman <ebiederm@xmission.com> :
 > So, where is the source for it ?
 The GPL'd driver that broadcom distributes.  The history of tg3.c
 is that broadcom's bcm57xx driver drove the hardware correctly but
 not linux so it was rewritten from scratch.

 The ball is definitively in Broadcom's camp.
 --
 SvenL

advansys (drivers/scsi):

 * Copyright (c) 1995-2000 Advanced System Products, Inc.
 * Copyright (c) 2000-2001 ConnectCom Solutions, Inc.
 * All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that redistributions of source
 * code retain the above copyright notice and this comment without
 * modification.
 *
 * As of March 8, 2000 Advanced System Products, Inc. (AdvanSys)
 * changed its name to ConnectCom Solutions, Inc.

 not contacted yet
 This looks fine; the driver and firmware appears to be BSD-licensed, no?. -dil

computone (drivers/char):

 *   (c) 1999 by Computone Corporation

 loads ip2/fip_firm.h

 not contacted yet

dsp56k.c (drivers/char):

 * The ["DSP56001"] Device Driver, saviour of the Free World(tm)
 *
 * Authors: Fredrik Noring   <noring@nocrew.org>
 *          lars brinkhoff   <lars@nocrew.org>
 *          Tomas Berndtsson <tomas@nocrew.org>
 *
 * First version May 1996
 *
 * History:
 *  97-01-29   Tomas Berndtsson,
 *               Integrated with Linux 2.1.21 kernel sources.
 *  97-02-15   Tomas Berndtsson,
 *               Fixed for kernel 2.1.26
 *
 * Copyright (C) 1996,1997 Fredrik Noring, lars brinkhoff & Tomas Berndtsson
 *
 * This file is subject to the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public
 * License.  See the file COPYING in the main directory of this archive
 * for more details.

 Not yet contacted

mga (drivers/char/drm):

 /''' mga_ucode.h -- Matrox G200/G400 WARP engine microcode -'''- linux-c -*-
 * Created: Thu Jan 11 21:20:43 2001 by gareth@valinux.com
 *
 * Copyright 1999 Matrox Graphics Inc.
 * All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
 * to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
 * the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
 * and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
 * Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 *
 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
 * in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
 * OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL
 * MATROX GRAPHICS INC., OR ANY OTHER CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
 * DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR
 * OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE
 * OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
 *
 * Kernel-based WARP engine management:
 *    Gareth Hughes <gareth@valinux.com>

pcxx (drivers/char):

 *  linux/drivers/char/pcxx.c
 * 
 *  Written by Troy De Jongh, November, 1994
 *
 *  Copyright (C) 1994,1995 Troy De Jongh
 *  This software may be used and distributed according to the terms 
 *  of the GNU General Public License.
 *
 *  This driver is for the DigiBoard PC/Xe and PC/Xi line of products.
 *
 *  This driver does NOT support DigiBoard's fastcook FEP option and
 *  does not support the transparent print (i.e. digiprint) option.
 *
 * This Driver is currently maintained by Christoph Lameter (christoph@lameter.com)
 *
 * Please contact digi for support issues at digilnux@dgii.com.
 * Some more information can be found at
 * http://lameter.com/digi.

 includes digi_fep.h digi_bios.h wich just contain hexdumps, and no copyright header

 Not contacted yet

r128 (drivers/char/drm):

 /''' r128_cce.c -- ATI Rage 128 driver -'''- linux-c -*-
 * Created: Wed Apr  5 19:24:19 2000 by kevin@precisioninsight.com
 *
 * Copyright 2000 Precision Insight, Inc., Cedar Park, Texas.
 * Copyright 2000 VA Linux Systems, Inc., Sunnyvale, California.
 * All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
 * to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
 * the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
 * and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
 * Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 *
 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including the next
 * paragraph) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the
 * Software.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL
 * PRECISION INSIGHT AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
 * OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
 * ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
 * DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
 *
 * Authors:
 *    Gareth Hughes <gareth@valinux.com>

 contains "CCE microcode (from ATI)"

radeon (drivers/char/drm):

 /''' radeon_cp.c -- CP support for Radeon -'''- linux-c -*-
 *
 * Copyright 2000 Precision Insight, Inc., Cedar Park, Texas.
 * Copyright 2000 VA Linux Systems, Inc., Fremont, California.
 * All Rights Reserved.
 *
 * Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 * copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
 * to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
 * the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
 * and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
 * Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
 *
 * The above copyright notice and this permission notice (including the next
 * paragraph) shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the
 * Software.
 *
 * THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
 * IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 * FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.  IN NO EVENT SHALL
 * PRECISION INSIGHT AND/OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
 * OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
 * ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
 * DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
 *
 * Authors:
 *    Kevin E. Martin <martin@valinux.com>
 *    Gareth Hughes <gareth@valinux.com>

 contains "CP microcode (from ATI)"

 not contacted yet
 Another BSD license?

ser_a2232 (drivers/char)

 * Copyright (c) 1995 Jukka Marin <jmarin@jmp.fi>.
 * All rights reserved.
 *
 * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
 * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
 * are met:
 * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
 *    notice, and the entire permission notice in its entirety,
 *    including the disclaimer of warranties.
 * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
 *    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
 *    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
 * 3. The name of the author may not be used to endorse or promote
 *    products derived from this software without specific prior
 *    written permission.
 *
 * ALTERNATIVELY, this product may be distributed under the terms of
 * the GNU Public License, in which case the provisions of the GPL are
 * required INSTEAD OF the above restrictions.  (This clause is
 * necessary due to a potential bad interaction between the GPL and
 * the restrictions contained in a BSD-style copyright.)

 copyright from included file ser_a2232fw.h

 Not yet contacted 
 Dual licensed BSD/GPL, we can choose BSD for the firmware.  If there's some 
 sort of bad interaction between the GPL and BSD license (as the above seems
 to imply), we've got larger problems. :p  -dil

Bill Allombert's study of the problem in the 2.4.25 kernel : http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2004/04/msg00074.html

A more formal analysis of the steps to take, from Humberto Massa : http://lists.debian.org/debian-legal/2005/04/msg00192.html