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Re: ecos license question.


On Wed, Jan 15, 2003 at 09:43:13PM -0800, Shannon Holland wrote:
> 
> On Wednesday, January 15, 2003, at 06:19  AM, Jonathan Larmour wrote:
> 
> > The only code you can keep to yourself are files containing no eCos 
> > code in part or full.
> >
> 
> As I'm moving towards developing a commercial application, I'm also 
> interested in making sure I fully understand this.
> 
> So my own code (which might include ecos header files and call ecos) is 
> covered by whatever license I choose to give it. If I make changes to 
> ecos itself, I need to make them public (and have absolutely no problem 
> with doing so!). If I copy some section of ecos code and put it in my 
> own, I need to make that part public.
> 
> As far as making code public, is giving my ecos changes back to the ecos 
> source tree/development group adequate or do I need to make the source 
> files available separately as well?

This was answered very specifically by Jonathan and it is literaly in 
the GPL license:

- either you ship the sources with the product
- you make available for 3 years the source code upon
  simple request, but for a small price.

The logical way to me would seem you either:

- contribute it to the project 
- set-up your own web server
- contract a party that will do that for you

and mention in your license agreement that compliant to the
eCos 2.0 license, you have made the sources of all derived works
of eCos publicly available on this spot.

In parallel, you could print CD's and offer to send any party that
requests it the CD for a small handling fee.

For your reference, I just copy here a part of section 3 of GPL
(which is kind of clear in itself):

>From http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html:

  3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under 
     Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of 
     Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

    * a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable 
         source code, which must be distributed under the terms of 
	 Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software 
	 interchange; or,

    * b) Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, 
         to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of 
	 physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable 
	 copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the 
	 terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for 
	 software interchange; or,

    * c) Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to 
         distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed 
	 only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program 
	 in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with 
	 Subsection b above.) 

disclaimer: this is not legal advice, IANAL

If you really want legal advice, I could point you to lawyers specialized in this
matter.

Peter

> Shannon

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