From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 15006 invoked by alias); 7 Sep 2013 03:04:31 -0000 Mailing-List: contact ecos-maintainers-help@ecos.sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: ecos-maintainers-owner@ecos.sourceware.org Received: (qmail 14994 invoked by uid 89); 7 Sep 2013 03:04:31 -0000 Received: from hagrid.ecoscentric.com (HELO mail.ecoscentric.com) (212.13.207.197) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.93/v0.84-503-g423c35a) with (AES256-SHA encrypted) ESMTPS; Sat, 07 Sep 2013 03:04:31 +0000 Authentication-Results: sourceware.org; auth=none X-Virus-Found: No X-Spam-SWARE-Status: No, score=-3.5 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED,AWL,BAYES_40,KHOP_THREADED,RP_MATCHES_RCVD autolearn=ham version=3.3.2 X-HELO: mail.ecoscentric.com Received: from localhost (hagrid.ecoscentric.com [127.0.0.1]) by mail.ecoscentric.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id D1D4D4680011; Sat, 7 Sep 2013 04:04:26 +0100 (BST) Received: from mail.ecoscentric.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (hagrid.ecoscentric.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id YtXpGGJf6SsH; Sat, 7 Sep 2013 04:04:21 +0100 (BST) Received: from lert.jifvik.org (jifvik.dyndns.org [85.158.45.40]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client did not present a certificate) (Authenticated sender: jlarmour@ecoscentric.com) by mail.ecoscentric.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 892AC4680003; Sat, 7 Sep 2013 04:04:21 +0100 (BST) Message-ID: <522A97B3.4060607@eCosCentric.com> Date: Sat, 07 Sep 2013 03:04:00 -0000 From: Jonathan Larmour User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.15) Gecko/20101027 Fedora/3.0.10-1.fc12 Lightning/1.0b2pre Thunderbird/3.0.10 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Michael Jones CC: ecos-maintainers@ecos.sourceware.org Subject: Re: Copyright and maintainability question for new ARM Cortex A9 HAL References: <77A01081-8A89-4D60-B7B1-78D774946EC6@linear.com> In-Reply-To: <77A01081-8A89-4D60-B7B1-78D774946EC6@linear.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-SW-Source: 2013-09/txt/msg00001.txt.bz2 On 05/09/13 04:52, Michael Jones wrote: > > The status is: > > - Project not registered yet That's not an issue. Projects don't need to be registered. > - Uses Freescale SDK macros > - Uses Freescale SDK code for MMU, GIC, etc Okay, the most important thing we need to know is the license for that Freescale SDK. Is it Free (with a capital F) - in other words, it can be distributed and redistributed freely by anyone in a way acceptable to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)? That means really, is it one of the licenses here: http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#GPLCompatibleLicenses If it is one of those licenses, that will probably mean it's okay (unless the GPL exception clause in the eCos license causes some conflict). Furthermore, we can directly incorporate any files you use directly into the port, avoiding any problems with users having to build with an SDK which lives elsewhere. > Before I register, I want to have a strategy in place to deal with > Freescale code. Do I replace all the Freescale code line by line until > nothing is left, Assuming it needs to be replaced... Replacing it line by line is risky. Copyright is about ideas, not just who typed it in. If you use the same, or a sufficiently similar, API or design to theirs, it risks infringing the copyright. Not only must it not be the API, it must not be able to be considered to have been derived from the API. In some cases, people have gone to the extent of "clean room" implementations to avoid this sort of thing, but I don't think that's likely to be needed. But really what's wanted is to effectively do what you would have done if the Freescale SDK APIs hadn't been there. For some stuff, it can't really be done any other way *anyway*, which is fine. For example, an interrupt controller mask macro - there's probably only one particular way to do it. Although if, for example, you named the function, and any local variables, exactly the same way, that might be a problem. Hopefully replacement isn't relevant though. > or see if Freescale will assign copyright? That would certainly be easiest, however I don't think they're going to want to assign copyright for their whole SDK! There can only be one owner of the code, and it would mean it was no longer Freescale. So that really won't fly. However, I think in this case we can have confidence that Freescale are the owners of the code, and have the rights to redistribute; that's something we have to be more cautious about with other contributors. Jifl -- eCosCentric Limited http://www.eCosCentric.com/ The eCos experts Barnwell House, Barnwell Drive, Cambridge, UK. Tel: +44 1223 245571 Registered in England and Wales: Reg No 4422071. ------["Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere"]------ Opinions==mine