Re: [ECOS] license

[Chris Gray <chris dot gray at kiffer dot be>]

On Thursday 08 July 2004 01:43, pierre wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> I would like to sell a product based on ecos but I
> have been afraid to
> use GPL after reading this article:
>
> What do you think ?
> also do you have already company using ecos ? and
> selling products...
>
> Ps: I found it on a website of a RTOS vendor : green
> hill, I don't want to blaim anyone..
>
> sincerely
> pierre

Well, you could blame GreenHills, as they're the responsible publisher ...

> The thousands of contributors to GPLed RTOSes each own
> the copyright to their contribution. Many contributors
> are identified only by an
> e-mail address.
> vUnder the GPL, the managers of a GPLed project
> disclaim any
> responsibility for collecting valid copyright
> assignments from the contributors.

I don't think this has much to do with the GPL. Some projects insist on rather 
formal copyright assignments from their contributors; others don't. Those 
that do include anything run by the FSF, and eCos. Those that don't are 
living dangerously, bu tprobably account for 99% of the projects on 
SourceForge or wherever.

> None the contributors state that their contributions
> do not infringe
> copyrights, trade secrets, or patents. Any contributor
> who hasn't signed
> a valid copyright assignment, or anyone from whom any
> contributor stole
> software, or any contributor's employer who legally
> owns the copyright
> to any work they did on company time or with company
> computers, or the
> holders of patents any contributor inadvertently
> infringed, can sue you
> and all of your customers.

And GreenHills can be certain that none of their software violates any patent 
ever issued? If they know how to do that, they should market the service; it 
could prove to be far more valuable than just selling operating systems.

> vIf you violate any term of the GPL to even the
> slightest extent, your
> license to distribute the RTOS terminates
> automatically.

On paper, yes; and I expect that GreenHills' contracts contain similar clauses 
(mine certainly do). In practice it means that if you are distributing 
software in a way which conflicts with the license, you need to (1) change 
your behaviour, (2) negotiate the transition, (3) with some sense of urgency. 
I don't see a big difference here between eCos and Integrity or WinCE, say.

Illegitimis non carborundum.

-- 
Chris Gray                      /k/ Embedded Java Solutions
Embedded & Mobile Java, OSGi        http://www.kiffer.be/k/
chris.gray@kiffer.be                         +32 3 216 0369


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