It is historically well known that Broadcom does not allow redistribution of the b43 firmware. This is confirmed by: - http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Firmware ("Broadcom refuses to re-license them under redistributable license. ") - http://wireless.kernel.org/en/users/Drivers/b43 ("the firmware from the binary drivers is copyrighted by Broadcom Corporation and cannot be redistributed. ") - Colin Watson in bug #29566 ("We've already talked to Broadcom; no luck. The wl driver and various reverse-engineering efforts are the only way we're going to get redistributable firmware here.") But it appears from this changelog - https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/oneiric/+source/linux-firmware-nonfree/+changelog - that Tim Gardner added the b43 firmware files to linux-firmware-nonfree back in September 2011, and the files are still there in trusty. So does Canonical actually have a license to redistribute the b43 firmware? The current situation really appears as if Broadcom said "…