Bug#517627: Alteon NIC firmware

[Jonathan Nieder]

(please direct followups to debian-le...@lists.debian.org)
Hi Jamie,

Jamie Lokier wrote:

> Indexing was turned off.  They are all readable now.

Thanks for fixing it.

> The tools etc. were originally collected for a custom firmware
> projects (it was a popular board for that), and I decided to host them
> because Alteon were shutting down, and as a general principle of
> keeping source around.
>
> I'm not sure if the license would satisfy DFSG.  It's pretty open as
> these things go.

Yes, looking over [1] and [2], I'm impressed.  The work was
refreshingly public.

Do I understand correctly that the original Software the license
agreement is talking about is what I can find as

 0c793d90688379bcb135cc1e6f5ea7cad4c2f13e   opendrv.tar.gz
 cbe58dcc0e470f161697b31b4b63e136b244eb6f   openfw.tar.gz

at ?  (Thanks, Bill!)
Then my only potential worry re provenance would be files copyrighted
by someone other than Alteon, such as:

FILE trace.c

COPYRIGHT (c) Essential Communication Corp. 1995

FILE timer.c

COPYRIGHT (c) Essential Communication Corp. 1995

(and likewise for recv.h, proto.h, nic.h, and so on).  Essential
Communication, Corp seems to have been bought by ODS Networks, Inc in
1998[3].  In 2000, ODS Networks started marketing an intrusion
detection system and changed its name to Intrusion.com, Inc, and in
2001 it changed names again to Instrusion, Inc to avoid the .com
bust[4].  In 2002, SBS Technologies bought Essential's copyrights and
employees from Intrusion, Inc[5].  In 2006, GE bought SBS
Technologies[6]; the relevant division of GE seems to be called "GE
Intelligent Platforms".  It's possible someone at GE could clarify
whether Alteon had the right to distribute, modify, and relicense this
code.  Anyway, I suspect it's ok.

Here are the terms from [2] for reference:

| SOFTWARE DRIVER DEVELOPMENT CODE LICENSE AGREEMENT
| AT ABSOLUTELY NO COST, 
| Alteon WebSystems, INC. ("ALTEON"), IS WILLING TO LICENSE 
| THE SOFTWARE DRIVER DEVELOPMENT CODE, 
| INCLUDING ANY SAMPLE FIRMWARE FOR ALTEON NETWORK INTERFACE CARDS 
| AND ADAPTERS INCLUDED THEREIN, AND THE ACCOMPANYING DOCUMENTATION
| (COLLECTIVELY, THE "SOFTWARE") TO YOU 
| ONLY ON THE CONDITION THAT YOU ACCEPT 
| ALL OF THE TERMS IN THIS AGREEMENT.

Well, I accept the terms in this agreement, so that should be fine
as long as those terms will allow distribution through a typical
mirrored software repository.  Reading on:

| 1. LICENSE. Alteon grants you a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive,
| perpetual license to use, execute and compile the Software solely for
| the purpose of creating, testing and providing software programs
| (herein, the "Authorized Drivers") for use with ALTEON ACEnic adapters
| and ALTEON network cards. You may copy the Software and may publicly
| display the source code of any Authorized Driver in educational
| journals and periodicals; provided that you reproduce all applicable
| copyright and other proprietary notices that are contained within the
| original copy of the Software. You may license the object code of an
| Authorized Driver, including the Software contained therein; provided
| that such Authorized Driver is restricted to use solely with ALTEON
| ACEnic adapters and ALTEON network cards. Except as expressly provided
| for in this Agreement, you may not use, copy, modify, or transfer the
| Software, or any copy thereof, in whole or in part.
|
| 2. OWNERSHIP. The Software is licensed to you for use only under the
| terms of this Agreement, and ALTEON reserves all rights not expressly
| granted to you. You will own any Authorized Drivers created by you,
| subject to ALTEON'S ownership of the underlying Software.
|
| 3. TERM. This Agreement will terminate immediately upon notice to you if
| you materially breach any term or condition of this Agreement. You
| agree upon termination to promptly destroy the Software and all copies
| thereof.
|
| 4. WARRANTY DISCLAIMER. The Software is provided to you on as "AS IS"
| basis. ALTEON AND ITS SUPPLIERS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ALL OTHER
| WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS INCLUDING THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR
| CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE
| AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. NO ORAL OR WRITTEN INFORMATION OR ADVICE GIVEN
| BY ALTEON, ITS EMPLOYEES, DISTRIBUTORS, DEALERS, OR AGENTS SHALL
| INCREASE THE SCOPE OF THE ABOVE WARRANTIES OR CREATE ANY NEW
| WARRANTIES. 
|
| 5. LIMITATION OF REMEDIES. REGARDLESS OF WHETHER ANY REMEDY SET FORTH
| HEREIN FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE OR OTHERWISE, IN NO EVENT WILL
| ALTEON OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR TO ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY
| LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, INTERRUPTION OF BUSINESS, OR OTHER SPECIAL,
| INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING OUT
| OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SOFTWARE OR ANY DATA SUPPLIED
| THEREWITH, OR FROM THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE ANY AUTHORIZED DRIVERS
| DEVELOPED BY Y

Bug#517627: Alteon NIC firmware

[Bill Paul]

Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, Jonathan Nieder had 
to walk into mine at 19:53:42 on Saturday 01 October 2011 and say:

> (please direct followups to debian-le...@lists.debian.org)
> Hi Jamie,
> 
> Jamie Lokier wrote:
> > Indexing was turned off.  They are all readable now.
> 
> Thanks for fixing it.
> 
> > The tools etc. were originally collected for a custom firmware
> > projects (it was a popular board for that), and I decided to host them
> > because Alteon were shutting down, and as a general principle of
> > keeping source around.
> > 
> > I'm not sure if the license would satisfy DFSG.  It's pretty open as
> > these things go.
> 
> Yes, looking over [1] and [2], I'm impressed.  The work was
> refreshingly public.
> 
> Do I understand correctly that the original Software the license
> agreement is talking about is what I can find as
> 
>  0c793d90688379bcb135cc1e6f5ea7cad4c2f13e opendrv.tar.gz
>  cbe58dcc0e470f161697b31b4b63e136b244eb6f openfw.tar.gz
> 
> at ?  (Thanks, Bill!)

Yes, those files (as well as the pcinic.pdf and tigonbk.pdf documents) are 
exactly as I downloaded them from the Alteon web site, 11 years ago (wow -- I 
can't believe it's been that long). I'm the one who clicked "OK" on the 
agreement form to obtain them. Those are the last versions provided by Alteon 
before they ceased to be a going concern: shortly after Broadcom acquired 
them, the openkits web page was shut down. In the time since, Broadcom has 
never said anything to me about the files. I would be very surprised if they 
still cared.

As an aside, I was a bit confused about the ultimate fate of the Alteon Tigon 
intellectual property. For a while, 3Com was selling gigE NICs using the 
"Tigon III" BCM5700 and BCM5701 chips, with a brand on them that said "3Com-
Broadcom Technology Alliance." I don't know if this means that 3Com and 
Broadcom had joint ownership (temporarily or otherwise), or if 3Com just had 
an unusually broad license to use the BCM57xx chips on their cards. Whatever 
the case, the alliance didn't last long.

Anyway, the original files from Alteon came with pre-built object code for the 
Tigon I and Tigon II. They never released the source for the Tigon I, claiming 
it needed to be cleaned up before it would be suitable for public release. The 
Tigon II was much more widely used than the Tigon I though so most people 
didn't really mind. I compiled my own Tigon II images from the source and used 
those in the FreeBSD driver releases. The version currently shipping with 
FreeBSD has some tweaks in it that were added by the maintainer who took 
development of the ti(4) driver after I left the project.

The fw.tar.gz file is a snapshot of my firmware build environment for FreeBSD, 
which includes the openfw source and binaries that I built, along with the 
source and binaries for gcc 2.7.2 and the matching binutils, with the Alteon-
supplied patches applied. The object code that I built was the same as the 
object code included in the download -- I wanted to compile the code myself as 
a sanity check (and to see if I could do it).

There is some question in my mind though as to what exactly constitutes an 
"ALTEON network card." The Tigon II chip pretty much constitutes the entire 
card (generally the only other major component would be some external SRAM). 
The fact that some other vendor marketed the card under their name (e.g. 
Netgear) doesn't change the fact that it's still an Alteon device. I think the 
real intent was to prevent a competing 3rd party chip maker from creating 
their own NIC hardware and using some of the Alteon firmware with it, as 
opposed to using the firmware with genuine Alteon chips on OEMed cards. (It 
was not always obvious that OEMed cards used Alteon hardware because the chip 
was obscured by a heat sink.) That was my interpretation anyway. I figured 
Alteon would make money in any case since they were in the business of selling 
chips, whether directly on their own ACEnic cards or via OEMs.

In any case, I haven't thought about this stuff in years. Like I said, I don't 
think Broadcom is interested or they would have made a fuss over it by now.

-Bill

> Then my only potential worry re provenance would be files copyrighted
> by someone other than Alteon, such as:
> 
>   FILE trace.c
> 
>   COPYRIGHT (c) Essential Communication Corp. 1995
> 
>   FILE timer.c
> 
>   COPYRIGHT (c) Essential Communication Corp. 1995
> 
> (and likewise for recv.h, proto.h, nic.h, and so on).  Essential
> Communication, Corp seems to have been bought by ODS Networks, Inc in
> 1998[3].  In 2000, ODS Networks started marketing an intrusion
> detection system and changed its name to Intrusion.com, Inc, and in
> 2001 it changed names again to Instrusion, Inc to avoid the .com
> bust[4].  In 2002, SBS Technologies bought Essential's copyrights and
> employees from Intrusion, Inc[5].  In 2006, GE bought SBS
> 

Bug#517627: Alteon NIC firmware

[Jonathan Nieder]

Hi Ben,

Ben Hutchings wrote:

> I can't see any licence text within the source tarball.
[...]
> Where is the full version of the licence text that you are summarising?

It turns out we are in a funny situation, since the source code was
downloaded under terms that permit relicensing the _binaries_ with
fairly permissive terms.

To quote the source code license[1]:

You may license the object code of an Authorized Driver,
including the Software contained therein; provided that such
Authorized Driver is restricted to use solely with ALTEON
ACEnic adapters and ALTEON network cards.

I suspect this means that someone who downloaded the source code from
Alteon (like Jamie Lokier or Bill Paul) can simply _make something up_
as long as it includes the restrictions Alteon suggests.  Weird, but
I kind of like it.

To move forward:

 1. Does that look correct to you?
 2. What license terms would you like?  How can we help to get this
object code into the linux-firmware repository?

Thanks a lot for your help,
Jonathan

[1] http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?msg=66;bug=517627



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Bug#517627: Alteon NIC firmware

[Ben Hutchings]

Jamie,

You appear to be hosting the Alteon NIC firmware source and tools at
, but links to those subdirectories yield
'Forbidden' error pages.

Is there a reason why these are not available, or is this accidental?

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
It is easier to change the specification to fit the program than vice versa.


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Bug#517627: Alteon NIC firmware

[Jamie Lokier]

Ben Hutchings wrote:
> Jamie,
> 
> You appear to be hosting the Alteon NIC firmware source and tools at
> , but links to those subdirectories yield
> 'Forbidden' error pages.
> 
> Is there a reason why these are not available, or is this accidental?

A configuration accident as you correctly guessed.

Indexing was turned off.  They are all readable now.

If you build the firmware from the last source version, using the
Linux-hosted GCC 2.95 (needing "firmware.patch"), it even runs a bit
faster than the original Acenic binary :-) Somehow I never got around
to submitting my version to the kernel.  Don't ask me to revisit it now.

The tools etc. were originally collected for a custom firmware
projects (it was a popular board for that), and I decided to host them
because Alteon were shutting down, and as a general principle of
keeping source around.

I'm not sure if the license would satisfy DFSG.  It's pretty open as
these things go.  Lots of people hacked this chip, Tigon2, in
interesting ways because of it's relatively unique openness at the
time, and were disappointed when its successor, the Tigon3, wasn't
open at all.  It is quite a versatile dual-CPU gigE chip.

I wrote on the top-level index "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."  That last bit might
refer to just advice, or a DFSG-incompatible restriction, I don't
remember which.

If it breaks you get to keep both pieces :-)
-- Jamie



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Bug#517627: Alteon NIC firmware

[Ben Hutchings]

On Wed, 2010-04-21 at 09:53 +0100, Jamie Lokier wrote:
> Ben Hutchings wrote:
> > Jamie,
> > 
> > You appear to be hosting the Alteon NIC firmware source and tools at
> > , but links to those subdirectories yield
> > 'Forbidden' error pages.
> > 
> > Is there a reason why these are not available, or is this accidental?
> 
> A configuration accident as you correctly guessed.
> 
> Indexing was turned off.  They are all readable now.

Thank you.

[...]
> I'm not sure if the license would satisfy DFSG.  It's pretty open as
> these things go.
[...]

I can't see any licence text within the source tarball.  Do you mean
this text:

> "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."

?

Where is the full version of the licence text that you are summarising?

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Once a job is fouled up, anything done to improve it makes it worse.


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