Re: [oc] New License update

[John Dalton <johnd@southern-poro.com>]

COMMENT ONE

Section 2 b) of the GPL requires that any changes to a
program be distributed under the terms of the GPL.

It is not clear (by my reading) that the OpenIPcore license
(v0.20) requires changes to be distributed under the terms
of the OpenIPcore license.  Section 8 says that you must distribute
the original design under the terms of the OpenIPcore license,
but it does not explicitly refer to derived works.

In my view, freedom of derived works is the core benefit
of the GPL.  If this is the intent of the OpenIPcore license,
it should be made more explicit.

COMMENT TWO

In my opinion, poor grammar makes sections of the license
ambiguous.  For example, section 6 does not mean anything to me.
Once the terms of the license have been finalized, perhaps one
of GNU's lawyers could translate it into unambiguous legal speak?

COMMENT THREE

Has anyone figured out whether the GPL can be applied
directly to a design, alleviating the need for yet another
license?  If an extra license is required, can it be derived
form the GPL, with a minimum number of changes?  After all,
the GPL has stood for over 15 years.


On a personal note, I would not be comfortable applying the
OpenIPcore license to a design unless it ensures the
freedom of derived works.

Hope these comments are useful.

John Dalton