On Sun, 14 Jun 2009, Freddie Chopin wrote: > (sorry for sending to David only in the first try, this "Reply-To" > policy is really strange, and the "reasons" just don't convince me...) > > In my country such imaginary problems are often described as "a shot in > one's own foot". > > If OpenOCD aims to be uber-GPLv3-h4x0r-friendly that's perfectly fine, > but I just can't imagine majority of vista64 users building their own > copy of OpenOCD. That's not just as easy as you think (MinGW + MSYS + > like a dozen of different addons + some strange libraries)... These ppl > will probably use some other tool which has a GUI (H-JTAG, CrossWorks > demo, RIDE demo, Keil demo or IAR demo [whichever works with one's > JTAG], manufacturer's bootloaders) just for loading the flash (or > whatever memory they have). Or someone will just do a version with > FTDI's libraries and distribute it anyway. > > Sometimes I think that open-source is killing itself... All those rules, > and I once thought that open-source is about freedom (here I recall > recent "spaces vs. tabs" - jeez...) > > BTW - there is also a sentence which goes like "stupid regulations > should be violated" or something like that.
Nah... That's not the issue. No stupid regulators are imposing rules on OpenOCD. Instead, those rules were chosen by the authors of OpenOCD. And those rules that those authors chose are called the GNU Public License Version 2. Deciding that OpenOCD is regulated by the GPL _and_ some exception is fine... as long as it is clearly stated. For example, the GCC support library code comes with this license text: This file is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to link the compiled version of this file into combinations with other programs, and to distribute those combinations without any restriction coming from the use of this file. (The General Public License restrictions do apply in other respects; for example, they cover modification of the file, and distribution when not linked into a combine executable.) In other words, they allowed an exception to the GPL which is to be able to link this library with proprietary code. Without that exception, that would be simply impossible to use GCC for proprietary applications. So it is perfectly fine for those who holds the copyright on OpenOCD to amend those rules they chose for it. But it better be done explicitly (like, in written at the top of the COPYING file and in the documentation) or trying to enforce those rules in court could be difficult otherwise. If, say, some evil company decided to grab the OpenOCD code and sell it for big money, then any attempt at making that company stop _could_ be dismissed simply because the GPL is not properly enforced already anyway due to the libftd2xx issue being knowingly ignored. For example, this formulation could be used: In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the OpenOCD authors give you unlimited permission to link the compiled version of OpenOCD into combinations with optional libraries providing access to low level JTAG communication links, and to distribute those combinations. The General Public License restrictions are not applicable to those optional libraries in that case, even if they still cover modifications and redistribution of the OpenOCd source code. And the manual could add this clarification: The above means you have the right to link OpenOCD with the libftd2xx library and distribute the resulting binary even if libftd2xx is not itself covered by the GPL. Now... who can make that call? Is there someone with code in OpenOCD who is against such a relicensing? Nicolas _______________________________________________ Openocd-development mailing list [email protected] https://lists.berlios.de/mailman/listinfo/openocd-development
