Hello, On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 06:57:18PM +0100, Jian wrote: > I want to write a IFDHandler for a special smart card named > certgate, so that it can be used under linux and so on.
Cool. > Since OpenSC is an open souce project, and I have never work with > an open source project, there are many things i need to know. Wonderful attitude. I hope you come to appreciate the open source way. :) > first of all, is it allowed to "sell" hardware with OpenSC (as > PKCS#11)? Andreas offered good advice, consult your lawyer if in doubt, since this is ultimately a question of conforming to the OpenSC license. OpenSC is licensed under the LGPL, "Lesser General Public License", which is a variant of the GPL that puts less restrictions on the programs that are linked with the library. Both LGPL and GPL allow re-distribution, but there are some terms. Please read the COPYING file included in OpenSC for the full text. > 2, I need to use some code that not allowed to publish, is it > possible to protect these code? How? I assume you would be writing the driver using documentation acquired under an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) - if you have already signed the NDA there may not be much to do, but if you have the possibility then take this up with the other party of the NDA. Let them know that you would like to write open source software that will be re-distributable according to the license of your choice and see if you can get their approval. Some vendors will allow and even support this also for docs under NDA, as long as you do not distribute the documentation itself. While that would of course be good too, open source code is at least a step in the right direction, IMHO. On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 11:31:30PM +0100, Andreas Jellinghaus wrote: > I'm not a lawyer, so if in doubt, you better ask your lawyer. > OpenSC is licensed under LGPL license and as long as you adhere to > the license, you can include it in hardware. > > for example lots and lots of hardware sold like wlan routers is > thee days build upon linux, and thus includes a lot of software > under lgpl and gpl license. Among other things, the licenses demand that everyone who distributes a binary version of the software also makes the source code available to their users at no added cost. (Postage and the like is ok.) Vendors that comply with the license usually make the source code downloadable on their web site, and it must then include their customizations in case the license (LGPL or GPL) requires it. On Wed, Jan 17, 2007 at 09:49:41PM +0300, Alon Bar-Lev wrote: > I hope you will come to understand that commertial compitation is > providing the best hardware you can, publishing the specification > of how to communicate with it, so anyone who buy your product will > be able to make use of it. > > The licensing questions you have suggest that you have some argue > with providing people to freely use your products. I hope this will > be changed. I interpreted them as meaning the poster was quite interested in starting to explore open source, but that help was requested for understanding how open source software and licensing can co-exist with other, possibly pre-existing, commitments that appear to be incompatible with open source licensing. I hope we can help. :) //Peter _______________________________________________ opensc-devel mailing list [email protected] http://www.opensc-project.org/mailman/listinfo/opensc-devel
