[coreboot] Licensing question

[David Hendricks]

On Fri, Dec 17, 2010 at 5:07 PM, Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> wrote:

> It is perfectly fine to include a code release into coreboot which is
> dual licensed GPLv2 and BSD. But it is important to remember that
> from the point that it is included in coreboot, the copy of the
> release that exists within coreboot will be licensed *exclusively*
> under GPLv2. As long as the code does not change, this is at most a
> technicality.
>
> But if the released code that is included in coreboot is changed
> within coreboot, because the community sees some opportunities to
> improve coreboot overall by doing so, then those changes are also
> licensed exclusively as GPLv2. This means that those changes can not
> be included "back" into the original dual licensed codebase, or into
> any derivative which chose to use either the dual license or the BSD
> license.
>

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.

It seems to me that it is most beneficial overall for AMD to release the
code as BSD only for the reason you mention here. For AMD to see maximum
benefit for their contributions here, and for the technical advantages of
reducing diffs between AMD and Coreboot sources (good for everyone), the
Coreboot community should make it easy for AMD to port changes back into
their tree.

I like the GPLv2 and all, but I think BSD is more practical and will be most
beneficial for all parties in this case. Unless there is a heavy burden
placed on Coreboot developers by using BSD-licensed AGESA code that I am not
seeing here?

</my $0.02>

-- 
David Hendricks (dhendrix)
Systems Software Engineer, Google Inc.
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