Dear Jerry Van Baren, In message <4a521bd5.8080...@ge.com> you wrote: > > 3) U-Boot currently has an explicit license to run "stand alone > applications" that have a GPL-incompatible license.
Thanks for mentioning this. But this is explicitly restricted to "stand alone applications", with a pretty tightly limited set of functions exported to such code. It is not intended to be extended into something like loadable modules that can access much more of U-Boot's internal code. > Questions: > Would U-Boot be willing to have as much GPLv2++ (GPLv3) as possible, and > supporting a run time plug-in system to accommodate GPLv2-only modules? This would quickly render the whole effort of going to GPLv3 useless, as vendors would put all the "interesting" stuff into such GPLv2-only modules, and the result would be the same as with an all-GPLv2 system. Thus the answer can only be: if we go for GPLv3, then we have to do it right, which forbids such an exception. > If we accommodate GPLv2-only modules, will we allow proprietary > modules? Depending on what we accept and how, proprietary modules may be > allowed as a side effect of allowing GPLv2 modules - is that a problem? We don't intend to support proprietary modules - the existing exception for "stand alone applications" already allows to run priprietary code if somebody really feels he must do that, but then they please also take the burdon of developing _all_ their code themself. I don't intend to give them all of the existing U-Boot code for free to be used in their proprietary modules - that would be stupid. We could use a BSD license then as well. This maight be interesting to some, but it is definitely not acceptable to me. > Richard, Wolfgang, U-Boot List, how do you view a "loadable module > loophole" fitting in with GPLv3 > (a) legally and > (b) philosophically? I think there would be no big problems to set this up legally (just give an experienced laywer enough $$$), but it does not fit in philo- sophically - and not only not with GPLv3, but already now. Best regards, Wolfgang Denk -- DENX Software Engineering GmbH, MD: Wolfgang Denk & Detlev Zundel HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: w...@denx.de "There is nothing new under the sun, but there are lots of old things we don't know yet." - Ambrose Bierce _______________________________________________ U-Boot mailing list U-Boot@lists.denx.de http://lists.denx.de/mailman/listinfo/u-boot
