Re: [gnu.org #25869] eCos as an FSF project?

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl@eCosCentric.com>]

FSF General Contact Address wrote:
> Dear eCos team,
> 
> About a month ago, you wrote to us with interest in becoming part of the
> GNU project, and questions about what would be necessary to do so.  I have
> not heard from you since.  If you could just let me know what has come of
> this so far -- if you've come to a decision one way or the other, have
> further questions, are still considering the issue, or whatever else -- I
> would appreciate a quick note.

No problem. We are indeed keen to go forward with this.

> If it is of any help, I would like to point out that we would be happy to
> help negotiate copyright and licensing issues with Red Hat, particularly on
> the documentation, if we are able to obtain copyright on the software.

The issue is indeed the documentation currently under the Open Publication 
Licence. If you can bring what influence you have to bear on this it would 
be great. Right now, despite sending to a range of people, with several 
reminders, I've been quite disappointed to receive absolutely no response, 
not even an acknowledgement.

If you could contact whoever you feel would be best to help, please do so, 
and if we can help with this in any way, just ask.

Just for the avoidance of doubt, by the way, as discussed before, we are 
unable to do anything about Red Hat's copyright on the software, but, 
since the current licence is GPL+special exception, that was okay by the 
FSF.... in future the software would end up being dual licenced FSF and 
Red Hat. Of course it would be pointless for Red Hat to maintain their 
copyright in such a situation, but there's little we can do about that.

> Also, if you have not yet made a decision, I would appreciate if you could
> answer a quick question of ours.  We were wondering if people use GNU
> software with eCos -- have a GNU/eCos system, in other words -- and if so,
> how common it is to use GNU software with eCos.  Any examples of such
> systems you could refer us to would be helpful as well.

I've heard very isolated examples of GNU software being used with eCos, 
but not really many yet as a) we were only GPL compatible until just over 
a year ago and previously were explicitly incompatible (and haven't had a 
major release since that change until right now!); and b) we've still to 
provide some of the more common system infrastructure components that GNU 
systems provide.... remember that in our world, we don't even always have 
filesystems! We intend to redress this "shortly", but of course as ever 
it's a volunteer effort :-).

Jifl
-- 
eCosCentric    http://www.eCosCentric.com/    The eCos and RedBoot experts
--[ "You can complain because roses have thorns, or you ]--
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