From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 19149 invoked by alias); 1 Aug 2007 10:09:50 -0000 Received: (qmail 19132 invoked by uid 22791); 1 Aug 2007 10:09:47 -0000 X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from londo.lunn.ch (HELO londo.lunn.ch) (80.238.139.98) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.31) with ESMTP; Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:09:44 +0000 Received: from lunn by londo.lunn.ch with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1IGB8v-0005NN-00; Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:09:25 +0200 Date: Wed, 01 Aug 2007 10:09:00 -0000 From: Andrew Lunn To: Klaas Gadeyne Cc: ecos-discuss@ecos.sourceware.org Message-ID: <20070801100925.GA15536@lunn.ch> Mail-Followup-To: Klaas Gadeyne , ecos-discuss@ecos.sourceware.org References: <2a3305fe0707301026l128193f5ib904b30c5c7081b9@mail.gmail.com> <97993dc40707310034x25be6389t743929d93f368152@mail.gmail.com> <20070731093508.GE27886@lunn.ch> <20070731100040.GF27886@lunn.ch> <20070731121216.GG27886@lunn.ch> <20070731130119.GH27886@lunn.ch> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.16 (2007-06-11) X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact ecos-discuss-help@ecos.sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: ecos-discuss-owner@ecos.sourceware.org Subject: Re: [ECOS] Project ideas for graduate course X-SW-Source: 2007-08/txt/msg00001.txt.bz2 > It does not remove the right to redistribute (modified code) of EML, > as long as it stays compatible with the (open) EtherCAT standard (which I > think is not so unlogically?) And how does that work? Say i was to pay for a license and get the GPL source. I make a product and sell it, distributing the source, to XYZ. XYZ then hacks on the source and adds some features. They make a new product. They sell there product to ABC and again distribute the source. ABC does some more hacking, breaks compatibility and then sell a product to FSDS. Now only i have signed a license. However i have no control over what people do with the GPL code. When FSDS reports the code is no longer compatible is my license revoked even though the problem is with ABC code? Do you take me to court, i have to take XYZ to court and XYZ has to take ABC to court? More questions for the copyright lawyers..... Maybe a better way to do this is to throw away the license agreement. Instead provide regression test cases which demonstrator compatibility to the standard. Anybody hacking on the code should be encouraged to run the regression tests to check they have not broken anything. If somebody adds new features which comply to the standard, you should ask they add more regression tests and feed back the changes to you. You can then independently test the changes are good and then make a new release. So long as you actively maintain and support the code, the chances of somebody forking it are low. Now this is what GPL is all about. And it does work. There is huge amounts of standards compliant protocol software available under GPL or similar licenses. Andrew -- Before posting, please read the FAQ: http://ecos.sourceware.org/fom/ecos and search the list archive: http://ecos.sourceware.org/ml/ecos-discuss