[coreboot] How to properly conform with GPLv2 for Coreboot and SeaBIOS on an embedded system

[Ian Lewis]

Hello Sam,

Thank you for the information on the SFC. I had not yet found their materials. I will look at them, though probably not until next 
week.

Ian
-----Original Message----- 
From: Sam Kuper
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2017 10:06 AM
To: Lewis, Ian (Microstar Laboratories)
Cc: coreboot at coreboot.org ; Peter Stuge
Subject: Re: [coreboot] How to properly conform with GPLv2 for Coreboot and SeaBIOS on an embedded system

Hi Ian,

On 24/12/2017, Lewis, Ian (Microstar Laboratories) <ilewis at mstarlabs.com> wrote:
> I have read this page
> https://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2008/compliance-guide.html
> several times, a number of other sites, as well as reading the GPLv2
> itself.

I want to echo Peter Stuge on these points...

On 24/12/2017, Peter Stuge <peter at stuge.se> wrote:
> Thank you for reaching out to the community with your very valid concerns!
>
> You are asking exactly the right questions.
>
> In the end, the community can't provide you with legal advice

.. and to add a caveat to these points from Peter:

>> If this is the wrong forum for this kind of question, I apologies. And,
>> I would appreciate if someone could point me to an appropriate forum.
>
> I think SFLC is a good point of contact, and FSF Europe also have a
> strong focus on applied use of free software code.
>
> http://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/documentation.en.html
> http://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/services.html
> http://gpl-violations.org/faq/vendor-faq/
>
> And if you are interested to connect your legal counsel with experts on
> the field of free software licensing, then this may be relevant:
>
> http://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/ln.en.html

The caveat is that this is all good advice *except* that instead of
contacting the SFLC (i.e. the Software Freedom Law Centre, run by Eben
Moglen et al), it might be better for you to contact the SFC (the
Software Freedom Conservancy, run by Bradley Kuhn, Karen Sandler, et
al).

In my opinion, the SFLC was still giving decent advice in 2008, which
is when it published the post you linked to. But it has, sadly,
behaved rather confusingly of late. By contrast, the SFC has always,
as far as I know, taken a reasonable and consistent stance in its
work. For more about the SFLC's recent, unfortunate behaviour, see:

- https://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/49370.html

- http://www.rants.org/2017/11/conservancy_sflc_dispute/

- https://lwn.net/Articles/738046/

Wishing you a successful and GPL-compliant product!

Sam