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Re: RedBoot licensing question


On Sun, 2002-10-13 at 12:25, Grant Edwards wrote:
> 
> According to the RedBoot web page, it's under the "Red Hat eCos Public
> License", that requires sources for "covered code" to be distributed along
> with binaries.
> 
> My question: 
> 
> I create a C source file (mycommand.c) with some code in it that impliments
> some command functionality, and use the RedBoot_cmd() macro to add it to the
> RedBoot command table at link time as "mycommand".   Maybe I put this file
> in as part of my HAL, or maybe it's a completely separate package.
> 
> Is mycommand.c "covered code" that has to be distributed in source?  Somebody 
> I know wants to use RedBoot for a project, but his management thinks they
> can't becuase they want to:
> 
>  1) include some "proprietary" functionality for which they don't want to
>     distribute sources.
>     
>  2) want to restrict redistribution of the resulting bootloader binary.
> 
> AFAICT, this is the same as linking proprietary application code with eCos
> and limiting distribution of the resulting binary and refusing to distribute
> source for the proprietary application routines.  
> 
> That's allowed, right?

Under the latest license (eCos 2.0 beta), this is explicitly allowed.
This is partly why I made additions to RedBoot be done at link-time and
not compile-time (i.e. there is no "table of commands" to compile).

Of course, one still has to follow the GPL for the "core" code, but
this can be as simple as quoting a URL to
http://sources.redhat.com/ecos/


-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Gary Thomas                  |
eCosCentric, Ltd.            |  
+1 (970) 229-1963            |  eCos & RedBoot experts
gthomas@ecoscentric.com      |
http://www.ecoscentric.com/  |
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