[ECOS] Re: RE : [ECOS] Licence consideratios.

[Jonathan Larmour]

Andrew Lunn wrote:
>>In fact, licence terms were not included into the files I downloaded.
>>I have contacted the original contributor that said to me the package
>>was released under "RTEMs licence".
>>Regarding the name of four licences, I assumed it was "Primary licence".
>>
>>Then I have included RTEMs "Primary licence" terms into files and
>>submited those files to the original contributor for agreement.
>>He gave me this agreement.
>>
>>But I can't switch to eCos licence as, I think, all contributors should
>>give their agreement.
> 
> True. 
> 
>>Is this a problem to include files into eCos distribution?
> 
> 
> Now we know which license we are talking about, we can read it and see
> if its compatible. 

Andrew pointed me at the license, and I Am Not A Lawyer, but I think there
is an issue for it with contributions. The reason is that the RTEMS Primary
Licence contains this:

"[...] linking other files with RTEMS objects to produce an executable
application, does not by itself cause the resulting executable application
to be covered by the GNU General Public License."

Right now we allow any works based on eCos to be distributed with the GPL 
exception clause. This permits people to distribute unlinked or partially 
linked objects, e.g. libtarget.a etc. with no further restrictions than if 
they distributed other binaries.

The RTEMS license only permits executable applications to be distributed 
with the exception, so if someone distributes libtarget.a, then it becomes 
fully GPL'd, and so their whole application would become GPL'd. This is an 
undesirable new restriction.

As such, the license is compatible with eCos so you can use it with eCos, 
but we could not accept contributions based on it without risking 
contaminating the main eCos code base with stuff with extra restrictions 
beyond the current eCos license. And if you distribute non-executable 
objects containing this code, you have to realise that the full GPL applies 
to those objects.

However, if you want to contribute back, we can still put this stuff up in 
our contributions section for download. A .epk format would be best (see 
the component writer's guide).

Sorry!

Jifl
-- 
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