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The fact that the dtc and libfdt are distributed together, but have different licenses, can be a bit confusing. Several people have enquired as to what the deal is with the libfdt licensing, so this patch adds a README clarifying the situation with a rationale. Signed-off-by: David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> Signed-off-by: Jon Loeliger <jdl@jdl.com>main
David Gibson
17 years ago
committed by
Jon Loeliger
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Licensing and contribution policy of dtc and libfdt |
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=================================================== |
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This dtc package contains two pieces of software: dtc itself, and |
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libfdt which comprises the files in the libfdt/ subdirectory. These |
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two pieces of software, although closely related, are quite distinct. |
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dtc does not incoporate or rely on libfdt for its operation, nor vice |
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versa. It is important that these two pieces of software have |
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different license conditions. |
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As the copyright banners in each source file attest, dtc is licensed |
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under the GNU GPL. The full text of the GPL can be found in the file |
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entitled 'GPL' which should be included in this package. dtc code, |
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therefore, may not be incorporated into works which do not have a GPL |
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compatible license. |
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libfdt, however, is GPL/BSD dual-licensed. That is, it may be used |
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either under the terms of the GPL, or under the terms of the 2-clause |
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BSD license (aka the ISC license). The full terms of that license are |
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given in the copyright banners of each of the libfdt source files. |
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This is, in practice, equivalent to being BSD licensed, since the |
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terms of the BSD license are strictly more permissive than the GPL. |
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I made the decision to license libfdt in this way because I want to |
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encourage widespread and correct usage of flattened device trees, |
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including by proprietary or otherwise GPL-incompatible firmware or |
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tools. Allowing libfdt to be used under the terms of the BSD license |
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makes that it easier for vendors or authors of such software to do so. |
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This does mean that libfdt code could be "stolen" - say, included in a |
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proprietary fimware and extended without contributing those extensions |
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back to the libfdt mainline. While I hope that doesn't happen, I |
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believe the goal of allowing libfdt to be widely used is more |
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important than avoiding that. libfdt is quite small, and hardly |
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rocket science; so the incentive for such impolite behaviour is small, |
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and the inconvenience caused therby is not dire. |
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Licenses such as the LGPL which would allow code to be used in non-GPL |
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software, but also require contributions to be returned were |
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considered. However, libfdt is designed to be used in firmwares and |
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other environments with unusual technical constraints. It's difficult |
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to anticipate all possible changes which might be needed to meld |
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libfdt into such environments and so difficult to suitably word a |
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license that puts the boundary between what is and isn't permitted in |
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the intended place. Again, I judged encouraging widespread use of |
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libfdt by keeping the license terms simple and familiar to be the more |
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important goal. |
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**IMPORTANT** It's intended that all of libfdt as released remain |
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permissively licensed this way. Therefore only contributions which |
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are released under these terms can be merged into the libfdt mainline. |
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David Gibson <david@gibson.dropbear.id.au> |
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(principal original author of dtc and libfdt) |
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2 November 2007 |
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