|
From: | Rick Altherr |
Subject: | Re: [avr-chat] µC/avr crypto lib |
Date: | Thu, 24 Jul 2008 15:44:08 -0700 |
On Jul 24, 2008, at 2:54 PM, Bob Blick wrote:
On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:08:44 -0600, "Weddington, Eric" <address@hidden> said:However I see a small problem. According to your wiki, you're using theGPLv3 license. Most embedded developers will stay away from the GPLlicense unless there is an exception to allow linking to proprietary code without the proprietary code becoming GPL. See, for example, the licenseused for libgcc in the GCC project. AVR-LibC is licensed under themodified BSD license, which is a very liberal license and allows the userto do anything with the code. This allows users to use the AVR GCC toolchain, including the libraries, in commercial products.I think that is just one point of view. Part of the spirit of GPL is to further public development. That is why code I release to the public isreleased under GPL. I want improvements to it done by others available to the public. If I wanted to use this crypto lib in a closed commercial product I could contact the developer and try to arrange commercial licensing. BSD and LGPL licenses have their place. They are tilted towards commercial products full of closed code. Public development is dead-ended.
Be sure to tell that to the FreeBSD community. BSD and LGPL do not stifle contributions in any way. GPL is just forcing people's hand to its own detriment. In many cases, a business will extend a BSD- licensed library and contribute the changes back since their product isn't the library but the product using that library. On the other hand, a GPL'd library can't be used in a commercial software product at all, so those businesses will never contribute back since they can't use the license to begin with.
If you look at who contributes and who benefits, GPL provides continuityfor education and community development. Cheerful regards, Bob --http://www.fastmail.fm - I mean, what is it about a decent email service?_______________________________________________ AVR-chat mailing list address@hidden http://lists.nongnu.org/mailman/listinfo/avr-chat
-- Rick Altherr address@hidden"He said he hadn't had a byte in three days. I had a short, so I split it with him."
-- Slashdot signature
smime.p7s
Description: S/MIME cryptographic signature
[Prev in Thread] | Current Thread | [Next in Thread] |