Howdy,
I started asking my question on IRC and it was suggested that it might be better to have the discussion on the mailing list.
Here's the discussion from IRC so far:
[16:02] <rolette> Howdy. Is there any possibility of releasing flashrom under LGPL rather than GPL? I've searched through the docs, wiki, archives, etc. but haven't seen any discussions around this issue. [16:07] <stefanct> i'd guess that the problem did not arise yet because libflashrom is not really ready for use [16:08] <stefanct> feel free to start a thread on the ml :)
[17:06] <PaulePanter> rolette: Why do you need LGPL?
[17:44] <carldani> rolette: We had discussions about GPLv2 vs GPLv3, but I've never seen a request for LGPL. LGPL would only make sense if parts of flashrom should be linked against GPLv2-incompatible (e.g. GPLv3/proprietary) code. [17:47] <carldani> rolette: To make sure we can always incorporate flashrom code changes back into our codebase, we decided to stick to GPLv2. [17:49] <carldani> rolette: AFAIK Google modified flashrom to have a different command line interface and additional features for better integration into their update software. That update software just executes flashrom in a separate process and has a clean licensing barrier that way. [17:50] <carldani> rolette: That approach may work for you as well. [17:56] <carldani> rolette: And if you need support for some odd hardware where the vendor only offers a binary-only driver (e.g. some external programmers), there's always the option of reverse engineering it. We've done that in the past, and it works fine and is legally sound thanks to EU legislation which allows reverse engineering for interoperability regardless of what the vendor/manufacturer says. [17:59] <carldani> rolette: Most flashrom developers live in the EU, and quite a few of us are pretty good at reverse engineering. [18:02] <carldani> rolette: I would be very interested in hearing about a use case which requires flashrom to be LGPL. Please tell us about the background of your question.
[07:31] <rolette> Thanks to PaulePanter and carldani for the responses. The reason I'm asking about LGPL is that I'm interested in porting flashrom to VxWorks and using it in an embedded system. [07:32] <rolette> Historically we've written our own custom code for programming the various programmable parts we use and it makes more sense to work with something like flashrom if possible [07:33] <rolette> More than happy to contribute back our changes, but need the license to be something we can use in a system with flat memory space, etc. [07:34] <rolette> libflashrom is really what we'd be more interested in, but looks too early for that. Might be something we could help build if we can work out the licensing issues [07:35] <idwer> libflashrom would be derived work, therefor still be GPL2 licensed (afaik, ianal) [07:36] <rolette> Yep, understood. That's why I started by asking if there was any way to license flashrom as LGPL :) [07:39] <rolette> Given how common programmable parts are in embedded systems, seems like LGPL would end up netting more contributions from companies as they add support for the parts they are using on their designs [07:40] <rolette> Although I'm sure I'm not bringing up anything you guys haven't discussed [07:41] <rolette> Let me know if this is something that I should be discussing on the mailing list instead. I started here mainly in case there was going to be an immediate "hell no!" reaction [07:46] <stefanct> all active developers are here, but since i doubt that there will be an immediate conclusion it is probably a good idea to have something more persistent... i.e. a thread on the ml.
Thanks, Jay