Device Tree Blob (DTB) licence

Fri May 29 19:43:14 PDT 2015

> On May 29, 2015, at 11:10 PM, Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult <weigelt at melag.de> wrote:
> 
> Am 29.05.2015 um 05:31 schrieb Rob Landley:
> 
> >> What's the big deal with having DTS/DTB under GPL ?
>> 
>> One problem is that there's no such thing as "The GPL" anymore.
> 
> There are different versions. The kernel source clearly states
> GPLv2 (I, personally, would prefer v3 to prevent Tivoization)
> 
>> The Linux kernel and Samba can't share code anymore,
> 
> Do they really need to ?
> One could ask, whether smb support should belong into the kernel
> at all (instead of, eg., going via FUSE or 9P), but that's an
> entirely different discussion.
> 
>> even though they implement two ends of the same protocol, thanks to GPLv3.
> 
> Samba folks made the decision to prevent Tivoization of their code.
> I fully agree with that decision, and I wish the same for the kernel.
and other think the GPLv3 is a mistake and is not commercially usable

It’s call freedom.
> 
>> This seems to have badly damaged the long term viability of GPLv2,
>> which used to be synonymous with copyleft (category killer license)
>> and acted as a universal receiver because it was a terminal node in a
>> directed graph of license convertibility reducing most licensing
>> decisions to a simple binary "is it GPL compatible or not", which
>> greatly appealed to developers who aren't lawyers and don't want to
>> be.
> 
> Well, such things happen, if people have different views. In that case
> those who want to prevent Tivoization on the one and those who wanna
> allow it on the other side.
> 
> I rerely have the need to really copy-and-paste code from one project
> to another. When patching existing ones, I just stick to the upstream's
> license. And when starting new FOSS projects, I clearly choose (L)GPLv3,
> because I'm strictly against Tivoization.
> 

This is your choice, this remove freedom too GPLv3.

>> But now a project that's "GPLv2 or later" can't accept code from
>> _either_ the kernel or samba (neither provides the implicit dual
>> license they need).
> 
> Well, that's a decision of the individual projects - everybody has
> to live with his/her own decisions.
> 
>> Projects like QEMU are stuck between wanting to
>> turn kernel drivers inside out to make device emulations (GPLv2 code)
>> and grab processor definitions from gcc or binutils (GPLv3 code) and
>> one project cannot accept both because GPL + GPL is a license
>> conflict.
> 
> Seems to be a rare case to me. In general, I'd suggest making things
> used by several distinct projects into their own distinct entities.
> 
> Note: the GPL's viral effect doesn't depend on whether the sources
> are collected in one big repo, but on what is compiled-/linked-into
> where.
> 
>> Of course "BSD-like" would be public domain except for 20 years of
>> FUD, so they're mostly choosing one of the dozens of public domain
>> equivalent licenses like the various BSDs and MIT and ISC and Apache
>> that are equivalent except for "copy this license text exactly"
>> clauses that cause endless license bloat over time.
> 
> It's not entirely FUD. The questions is NOT whether the original open
> code will be wiped out of the net or people simply dont work on it
> anymore. The main question here is, whether foss developers (often
> working for free) want to help people producing non-free stuff. BSD
> like to allow that, FSF folks dont. They just have different views on
> that matter. IMHO, BSD folks are just interested in getting back
> contributions, while FSF folks also have a broader political agenda. I,
> personally, share that agenda (even more: I strongly believe that
> software patents should be eradicated).
> 
>> Personally I prefer public domain equivalent licenses like CC0 or
>> unlicense.org or my own "zero clause bsd", which DON'T require you to
>> copy specific license text verbatim into derived works.
> 
> Well, I have an fundamentally different oppinion on that. If I publish
> my code for free, I dont want assist anybody in producing non-free
> stuff. (free like freedom, not free beer)
> 
>> Most of this can be laid at the door of GPLv3.
> 
> Because many folks don't wanna fight against Tivoization.
> I'll have to accept that, but I don't need to coorporate.
> 
> > Android's "no gpl in userspace" policy is why they ripped out bluez
> > and wrote a replacement bluedroid from scratch.
> 
> The really interesting question is: why do they have that policy ?
> Maybe because they aren't interested in *free* (as freedom) software,
> but just open source.
> 
> Otherwise they'd have an strict policy of nothing proprietary in
> kernel space.
> 
>> The bluez developers keep going "if we just
>> improve the code enough people will get over the license" (no really:
>> https://lwn.net/Articles/597293/) but their FAQ literally doesn't
>> specify _which_ GPL they're under: http://www.bluez.org/faq/common/
>> (Is it the one you can't use with kernel code, the one you can't
>> combine with samba code, or the or-later version that can't accept
>> code from either source into its next release?
> 
> Why would one want to mix bluez code with the kernel or samba ?
> 
>> Apple's great GPL purge
>> (http://meta.ath0.com/2012/02/05/apples-great-gpl-purge/)
> 
> Apple belongs to the really bad guys, what Microsoft previously was.
> This is the StaSi. I have no mercy for them.
> 
>> is why we have LLVM replacing gcc, they literally stopped xcode on the last
>> GPLv2 releases (gcc 4.2.1 and binutils 2.17) for over five years while
>> they sponsored work on a replacement.
> 
> For xcode vs gcc, I dont really see any actual license _conflict_.
> This was an political action, and we should take it as that.
> Apple is against freedom. The least thing, we - the people - should
> do is not helping them, not giving them a single penny.

This kind of comment is not appropriate here, please keep it to your self next time.
> 
>> When samba went gplv3, they did
>> http://www.osnews.com/story/24572/Apple_Ditches_SAMBA_in_Favour_of_Homegrown_Replacement
>> for samba and so on.

…

> --> free like freedom, not free beer.
> 
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>> 
>> P.S. some of us actually care about licenses being appropriate to what
>> they're applied to, and at least theoretically capable of being
>> honored. Your email footer may be very slightly undermining your
>> position here.
> 
> This is just a dumb auto-generated footer, coming from my client's
> mail server over here ... I'm just too lazy for setting up an own
> MTA on my workstation. You can safely ignore that.
> 
> --
> Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult
> +49-151-27565287
> MELAG Medizintechnik oHG Sitz Berlin Registergericht AG Charlottenburg HRA 21333 B
> 
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> Important Notice: This message may contain confidential or privileged information. It is intended only for the person it was addressed to. If you are not the intended recipient of this email you may not copy, forward, disclose or otherwise use it or any part of it in any form whatsoever. If you received this email in error please notify the sender by replying and delete this message and any attachments without retaining a copy.

Drop this for now on this is a public mailing list every one can receive the e-mail.

If you are too lazy to remove do not post on the ML

Best Regards,
J.
> 
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