Patrick,

Note: I believe you sent this to me privately and I am responding
publicly since I think it is good information.

On Fri, Nov 20, 2015 at 10:31:32PM +0100, Patrick Rota - Swissponic Sagl wrote:
> b) Distributing source code of RIOT: no problem. Distributing our source
> code: I have mixed feelings. On one side, as a free-time developer I
> understand and sustain the open source movement for all the good it brought
> to the software scene. I also thank all you developers who make this
> possible.

You can get by with distributing .o files for your proprietary
application, such that the end user can relink (with ld) your
application with a new version of riot.  That is the recommended
approach.

See this for a bit of a HOWTO on how that works:

https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/wiki/LGPL-compliancy-guide

and this (regarding licensing):

https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/wiki/FAQ

Full disclosure, I opened this issue with the project.  So I am
definitely not 100% neutral in this debate.  As a result of this though,
RIOT did not change license but did improve the wiki *SIGNIFICANTLY*.

https://github.com/RIOT-OS/RIOT/issues/2128

Ultimately, I regretfully ended up not using RIOT for my products
because of these licensing issues and my company's inability to deal
with the licensing restrictions (more social issues than technical
- I am not the boss! :] ), but it is entirely possible to develop
a completely proprietary application around RIOT with care! (And IMO is
the best technical solution on the market *by far* even those with
other licenses).

Good luck,
Andrew Ruder
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