>-----Original Message----- >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Christopher Fowler >Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2006 5:23 AM >To: openssl-users@openssl.org >Subject: Re: Licenses... > > >On Tue, 2006-04-11 at 08:07 -0400, Wes Kussmaul wrote: >> Are you suggesting that if you embed software in a hardware product, >> it's no longer software? >> >> The GPL most certainly applies to embedded versions of software >> products >> which it licenses. >> >> If that were not true then I would be able to put any GPLed software >> onto a USB thumb drive and call it exempt. > >I don't think so. What he is stating is that someone can provided the >GPLed software that they use on their embedded system and then it may be >possible or not possible for you to run your own modified versions on >their hardware. > >I believe it is okay to create a "disti" that runs on a device with >proprietary code and license only that "disti".
The phrase "with proprietary code" is very fuzzy. If your proprietary code becomes part of a binary file that includes GPL (ie: links into it) then you are WRONG. If your proprietary code is NOTHING MORE than a loader then you are correct. >You can download the >GPL software from the project but you would not be allowed to download >the proprietary code. This would make it virtually impossible for you >to run your stuff on that device. > No, it wouldn't, because all you have to do is download the GPL software, mod that, then upload it back to the device. >For example. On one of my devices I have a loader that runs in initrd. >That loader is owned by me. Without that loader you still could load >the GPL code into memory but you would have to recreate the work that my >loader does. > Once more, very fuzzy. If your code is a loader then how am I gonna load my stuff into your device without it? All I have to do is take the firmware image for your device, separate out your loader, replace the GPL with my own GPL, and put it back together and put it back into the device. How is your loader going to know that my GPL is any different than your GPL unless you modded your GPL - in which case you have to make those mods public per GPL. >People that write real embedded devices don't use 100% GPL software. I >know I don't. I would suspect that I could use 50% GPL and 50% stuff I >write my own. So in order to recreate my effort to 100% you would have >to make a similar investment in work. > Only if I want to modify the parts that you wrote that are separate programs, like the loader, and like any proprietary device drivers. But if all I want to do is modify the GPL part of your code then if your following the GPL I will have enough data to be able to do it. >As far as OpenSSL license is concerned I've not had a problem with it. >It is fine. > >I think some people believe that if you run any code on Linux that the >code must be GPL. That is not true. So this is where you may have >issues trying to get code from companies that create embedded devices >based on Linux. Not all the code is straight from the community. Some >of it is written by paid employees and belongs to the organization. > If it becomes a part of a GPL program then it must be opened, per the GPL. Period. No exceptions. Ownership isn't an issue here - the copyright stays with the company - but the code must be made public. Ted ______________________________________________________________________ OpenSSL Project http://www.openssl.org User Support Mailing List openssl-users@openssl.org Automated List Manager [EMAIL PROTECTED]
