On 10/24/2013 02:06 PM, andy pugh wrote:
> On 24 October 2013 19:55, John Morris <j...@zultron.com> wrote:
>
>> I believe that these restrictions mean that neither the LinuxCNC project
>> nor anyone else may distribute EtherCAT drivers in source code form or
>> otherwise, since with EtherCAT drivers, the software would essentially
>> become an 'EtherCAT device' subject to Beckhoff's licensing requirements.
>
> Does it matter that the HAL driver in question is not itself an
> EtherCAT master, but simply a glue layer between HAL and a third-party
> EtherCAT Master?
> (An inexact analogy would be a GPL filter to save a document in
> Microsoft Word format)
I'm no authority at all, of course, just trying to interpret these
matters for myself. I was becoming involved with packaging EtherCAT
before this topic was raised, so it affects me personally.
I'm focusing on the paragraph of Gerd's email following the title 'For
product /device manufacturers'.
He writes, 'Making, marketing and sale of a product making use of the
EtherCAT technology requires membership in the ETG and licensing of the
technology'. This sounds like LinuxCNC would qualify as such a product,
and therefore those of us engaged in those activities (most all of us
here in emc-developers) would be bound by those requirements, were
EtherCAT to be included.
A bit further down, he writes, 'if a product is a master stack software,
a vendor of the master stack or the master device does require a
technology license agreement for the master product'. I don't
understand what 'master device' means or when the term would apply to
LinuxCNC or systems it runs on. In any case, it does apply to IgH's
EtherCAT Master for Linux implementation, and is a 'further restriction'
explicitly prohibited by the GPL.
John
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