Comment 82 for bug 120434

I have created a PPA with r5u87x-loader but without any non-free pieces. The firmware with unclear copyright and license status has been removed as is not part of the binary or even the source packages. On the other hand, a new shell script is now included that can download and install all the necessary firmware directly from the upstream repository. Upon execution the script explains what it is going to do and asks the user for confirmation. I hope this a clean enough solution.
Packages for Intrepid, Jaunty, Karmic and Lucid are available.

https://launchpad.net/~r5u87x-loader/+archive/ppa

As explained above, the installation now breaks into two steps:
sudo apt-get install r5u87x-loader
sudo /usr/share/r5u87x-loader/r5u87x-download-firmware.sh