PPC405GPr with RTEMS + Support? (+ License talk)

[Smith, Gene]

Joel Sherrill <joel at OARcorp.com> wrote, On 8/5/2004 4:07 PM:
> I don't need a lawyer to know that I wouldn't touch the IBM code and
> you are spouting the party line on the Linux kernel.  All that ranting
> on my part has paid off. :)

Don't know about your "ranting" but seem obvious from read of the RTEMS 
and GPL licenses that you can't derive from GPL code that is not 
initially released/copyrighted with the RTEMS addendum, unless you 
distribute to customers your whole project (rtems code + application + 
GPL derived driver code) all as pure GPL.

So I should treat the IBM code as radioactive? Guess the IBM wording 
kind of implies that IBM could someday claim a patent on the code. Plus 
the thing about $1k libility sounds weird. I can see you would not want 
this verbage in the rtems tree, as using it would require.

> NetBSD has a driver for the 405 EMAC in src/sys/arch/powerpc/ibm4xx
> based upon my last checkout of their source. 
> 
> The dev subdirectory has if_emacs* which should be exactly what you
> want as a starting point.  There are multiple people on the list who
> have transformed BSD network drivers into RTEMS drivers.

Thanks for the pointer to netbsd. I hadn't looked there. However, 
if_emacs.c has this statement in its starting comments:

3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
  * must display the following acknowledgement:
  * This product includes software developed for the NetBSD Project by
  * Wasabi Systems, Inc.

I think this is the dreaded "advertising clause." I believe I have also 
seen similar words in the RTEMS bsd stack files. Would this requirment 
somehow be superceded by the overarching NetBSD or RTEMS license? Or do 
you really have to put something on your device label or manual saying 
"OAR RTMES + Wasabi NetBSD + U.Calif BSD Inside"?

The NetBsd license page
http://www.netbsd.org/Goals/redistribution.html
says this:
2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
    documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

What does it all mean?  :-(

-gene







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