The "IgH EtherCAT Master for Linux" page contains a notice that "Using the EtherCAT technology and brand is only permitted in compliance with the industrial property and similar rights of Beckhoff Automation GmbH", which are additional restrictions compared to the GPLv2 which requires the that the use of the software is not encumbered (GPL section 0, "[t]he act of running the Program is not restricted").
As a result, I do not believe linuxcnc.org can ship binary software that links to "IgH EtheCAT Master for Linux" because these use restrictions are additional terms that "contradict the conditions of this License [GPL-2]" (GPL section 7, "If [...] for any other reason [...] conditions are imposed on you ([...] by agreement [...]) that contradict the conditions of this License [...] you may not distribute the Program at all.") As a pure HAL driver, it is possible to ship them to be built separately from LinuxCNC. (built using Makefile.modinc, since it's too complicated for comp to handle) That way if someone else wants to ship the code in source or binary form, linuxcnc.org does not have to worry about it. Jeff ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ October Webinars: Code for Performance Free Intel webinars can help you accelerate application performance. Explore tips for MPI, OpenMP, advanced profiling, and more. Get the most from the latest Intel processors and coprocessors. See abstracts and register > http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=60135991&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk _______________________________________________ Emc-developers mailing list Emc-developers@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-developers
