Re: [oc] Beating a dead horse

[Johan Klockars <rand@cd.chalmers.se>]

> I have to respectfully disagree with an idea expressed repeatedly
> here recently, on the subject of licenses.

And I with yours.  ;-)

> Victor the Cleaner <jonathan@canuck.com> (among others) said
> > With respect to the license terms,
> > I strongly recommend adoption of the NetBSD license or similar.  I believe
> > that core users must have the option of not releasing their source if
> > building a commercial product, and for that reason the GPL is a problem.

I agree with this.

I think the OpenCore stuff should be protected by a GPL-like license that
allows surrounding circuitry to be proprietary.
The LGPL is somewhat like that, but I don't think it would work. IIRC,
it says something about making a linkable version of the rest of the code
available, which I don't see a reasonable way of doing with hardware,
while still protecting the IP.
(I'm not a lawyer and have never studied the LGPL carefully.)

> It's only a problem if you can't arrange a seperate license with the
> copyright holders.  I think we are all grown-up here.  If you can
> afford to mix a proprietary, paid-for core with the OR1K, you can
> also afford to license the OR1K.  Dual licenses are real, and work.

In principle, I agree with this, but I don't think it's workable in
this case.

> Sigh.  I wish I didn't feel compelled to say all this.  It's only
> distracting Damjan from releasing his code, and that's what we're
> really all here for.  To him, I say, go for the GPL!  But also

That's certainly not what I'm here for.
I'm here because I hope the OpenCores initiative will 'go somewhere'
in the future, and I'd like to help out 'getting there'.  ;-)
The OR1K is just the first step.

Currently I'm developing GPLed software, but I'd love to do much the same
with hardware. I do not think, however, that the GPL or LGPL is the
license to use for this, for reasons stated (by others) here and elsewhere.

> keep a close eye on who are really the copyright owners, so you

Keeping track of _who_ they are may not be impossible, but how would
you divide any profits made from a commercial second license?
There are already several teams, and there will be more. Naturally,
individual members will do different amounts of work on the projects,
and some things will be submitted/modified by outsiders.

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