PPC405GPr with RTEMS + Support? (+ License talk)

[Ralf Corsepius]

IANAL nor US citizen, ...

On Fri, 2004-08-06 at 00:00, Smith, Gene wrote:
> 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.
Right.

[Recently, a German Court has made a remarkable decision on the GPL:
Cf. http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/49377 (in German)
http://www.jbb.de/html/?page=news&id=32 (in German)
and (rough translation of the court's decision into English
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20040725150736471]

> > 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."
Yes, it is. 

Cf. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html
and http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html

Therefore, unlike Joel, I recommend using FreeBSD code instead of
NetBSD, because they are about to remove rsp. already removed the
advertising clause.

>  I believe I have also 
> seen similar words in the RTEMS bsd stack files.
Yes. The networking code in RTEMS is based on older FreeBSD, which at
some places still carries the ad-clause. I recently partially sync'ed
some of the files in RTEMS CVS with newer FreeBSD, which had enabled me
to remove the ad-clause from some files.

>  Would this requirment 
> somehow be superceded by the overarching NetBSD or RTEMS license?
No. In general, an "overarching" license can not supersede licenses or
copyrights on individual files. Conversely, all have to be applied and
respected simultaneously and all have to be compliant.

>  Or do 
> you really have to put something on your device label or manual saying 
> "OAR RTMES + Wasabi NetBSD + U.Calif BSD Inside"?
To be on the safe side, AFAIK: yes.

Ralf