Re: [avr-libc-dev] Open Source license for embedded systems

[Joerg Wunsch]

As Weddington, Eric wrote:

> > What's your opinion on this ? How did you deal with this ?

> Yes avr-libc has been used in commercial products, without
> problems. In practice, many people do not put the copyright notice
> in their documentation even though they are supposed to. I don't
> have a big problem with that and I am a copyright holder in a number
> of parts of avr-libc. However, I would care if someone else said
> that they wrote avr-libc (when they didn't), or if someone said that
> they owned all the copyright of avr-libc (which they don't).

I'm with that as well.  I think the BSD license has proven to be
"practical enough" even for embedded devices.  I've seen my name in
the fine print of some document accompanying some device (which
exactly I forgot), and I wasn't even aware /what/ I've been attributed
for there :), obviously something along the FreeBSD line.

If some embedded device really ships without /any/ accompanying
document, say, someone gives a gimmick containing an AVR away for free
or such, it's certainly still in the sense of the avr-libc developers,
even though not to the very last letter of the written license.  After
all, we just picked a proven license that matched our intentions as
best as it could, without trying to invent yet another one.

So far, nobody approached us to tell us he felt the licensing terms
being in the way of his commercial ideas about using the code.  Should
that really happen, I'm sure we'll find a way to handle that for the
benefit of both sides.

-- 
cheers, J"org               .-.-.   --... ...--   -.. .  DL8DTL

http://www.sax.de/~joerg/                        NIC: JW11-RIPE
Never trust an operating system you don't have sources for. ;-)