RE: Copyright Assignment from Altera Corp.

["Elaine Lee" <ELEE at altera dot com>]

Jonathan,

Your changes to the Altera open source Assignment of Copyright form are
acceptable to Altera.  I will send you two originals executed by Altera
to the address listed in http://ecos.sourceware.org/assign.html.  Upon
receipt, please have both originals executed by your signatory and
return one original to me at the address listed below.

Thanks very much for your help!

Best regards,
Elaine Lee
Patent Counsel
Altera Corporation
101 Innovation Drive M/S 1405
San Jose, CA  95134  USA

Phone +1 408 544 7591
Fax +1 408 544 8304

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Larmour [mailto:jifl@ecoscentric.com] 
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:46 PM
To: Elaine Lee; eCos Maintainers
Cc: Iain Scott; Paul Riley
Subject: Re: Copyright Assignment from Altera Corp.

> To: Andrew@lunn.ch, ecos-maintainers@ecos.sourceware.org
> Cc: Iain Scott <ISCOTT@altera.com>, Paul Riley <PRILEY@altera.com>
> 
> 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. 
<http://ecos.sourceware.org/license-overview.html>). 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 
<http://ecos.sourceware.org/assign.html>, 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