[OpenBIOS] [IMPORTANT] Legal Issues.

Stefan Reinauer stepan at core-systems.de
Tue Aug 28 22:29:57 CEST 2001


* Chris Maresca <ckm at crust.net> [010828 19:26]:
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001, Mads Martin [iso-8859-1] Jørgensen wrote:
> > People who write code, can license their code however they want to. Then
> > it's up to the project leader to determine if he want it in the project
> > or not. Personally I will GPL all code I am to contribute.
> 
> That's not actually true.  Code licensed under GPL does not allow for any
> other kind of license.  That's because the GPL expressly forbids
> non-public source, something which other licenses allow.  You cannot mix
> GPL code with anyother license type.  Period.  End of story.

Not exactly true. If you contribute to the exact code base directly, your code
has to have the same license to be included, yes. But Open Firmware uses a 
modular design, and it would be very well possible to create a net boot
module or a (graphical) user interface that uses the openfirmware lowlevel 
api under BSD license, which could still be used with OpenBIOS. 
It's similar with the Linux kernel and application programs that run upon the
kernel, only communicating via a defined API. These programs do not 
link against the kernel, so they might have a different license. 

> Read the license, you'll see what I mean.  If you decide that your code
> should only be licensed under GPL, and you contribute it to a BSD project,
> you might as well contribute nothing.

A license is only valid to the point to which the license owner is willing 
to inforce what it says anyways. So, except any religiousity, why should anyone
want to inforce that part if it only keeps back enhancement of the software 
project 

Best regards,
    Stefan

-- 
axiom: electronic devices only work if the smoke stays inside.
proof: when smoke comes out they don't work anymore.
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