From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 24916 invoked by alias); 13 Jan 2005 23:46:14 -0000 Mailing-List: contact ecos-maintainers-help@sources.redhat.com; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: ecos-maintainers-owner@sources.redhat.com Received: (qmail 24891 invoked from network); 13 Jan 2005 23:46:07 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO jifvik.dyndns.org) (81.104.194.28) by sourceware.org with SMTP; 13 Jan 2005 23:46:07 -0000 Received: from eCosCentric.com (garibaldi.jifvik.org [172.31.1.2]) by jifvik.dyndns.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4DE4C4048F; Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:45:52 +0000 (GMT) Message-ID: <41E7082F.5080904@eCosCentric.com> Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 23:46:00 -0000 From: Jonathan Larmour User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-GB; rv:1.4) Gecko/20030703 X-Accept-Language: en-gb, en, en-us MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Elaine Lee , eCos Maintainers Cc: Iain Scott , Paul Riley Subject: Re: Copyright Assignment from Altera Corp. References: <20050113082959.GJ6292@lunn.ch> In-Reply-To: <20050113082959.GJ6292@lunn.ch> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2005-01/txt/msg00007.txt.bz2 > To: Andrew@lunn.ch, ecos-maintainers@ecos.sourceware.org > Cc: Iain Scott , Paul Riley > > Hello Andrew and eCos maintainers, > > > I am writing regarding a contribution of computer software source code > Altera Corporation will be making to eCos, subject to execution of a > copyright assignment agreement between Altera and eCos. I believe Iain > Scott and Paul Riley of Altera has been in contact with Andrew Lunn > about this contribution. Andrew asked me to look at the assignment text, and I discussed with and passed it over to the eCosCentric CEO for comments on the legal aspects. > The contribution relates to a port of the eCos operating system for Nios > II, and drivers for various SOPC Builder peripherals. I have reviewed > your web pages regarding contributing to eCos and copyright assignments. > Altera has a standard Assignment of Copyright for open source and > freeware computer software, which is attached. I believe this > Assignment addresses the points brought up in eCos' copyright assignment > language and description. There are a few subtle differences that mean we can't use the exact text as you supplied straight off I'm afraid. 1) First of all the definition of "Works" and separately clause 7 refer to code checked into the Assignee's source code repository by Altera. That isn't the way it works with eCos (especially since the Assignee doesn't manage the relevant repository!). Something along the lines of "posted on the ecos-patches@ecos.sourceware.org mailing list or via the eCos bugzilla web site" would be more appropriate. 2) Secondly, the normal eCos license consists of the GNU General Public License (GPL), but also an exception to some of the terms of the GPL (cf. ). Clause 4 has problems with the exception part which is written to intentionally permit derived works where the only source code that must be given out is that of eCos itself, and not the application to which it is linked (despite the whole being a derived work). As such we think the best solution is for clause 4 to be amended so that the mentions of the "the work" from the 4th, 5th, and 7th lines of clause 4 would become "the Works". 3) Similarly for clause 5: 'any program "based on the Works"' should instead be replaced by 'the Program "based on the Works"' With those changes, the assignment would suit our needs and be compatible with the eCos license. However if you find it easier to just go with the normal assignment at , then that's fine too. Hope this helps and thanks for contributing back! Jifl (eCos Maintainer) -- eCosCentric http://www.eCosCentric.com/ The eCos and RedBoot experts --["No sense being pessimistic, it wouldn't work anyway"]-- Opinions==mine