Andrew Lentvorski wrote:
Correct. Every VLSI design group I know of has a blanket ban on using anything GPL since it might later cause source code for a design tool to have to be released.
This is rather scary. Shouldn't you be checking the license of any code you use to see if you are allowed to use it, GPL or not? If you say you are worried about accidentally including GPL'd code doesn't that imply that you are not keeping track of what code is licensed how and could also accidentally use some other code which you do not have an acceptable license for? Generally the GPL folks just say stop using our code or open your code. Companies using only a little GPL code generally just remove the GPL code. As far as I know nobody has ever been forced to open their code over an issue like this. Companies using the whole of Linux in their embedded device end up opening the whole thing or changing OS's but in such an extreme case they get what they deserve.
-- Tracy R Reed http://copilotconsulting.com 1-877-MY-COPILOT -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
