Very Computer

by To » Sun, 24 Feb 2002 19:18:41

Hi All,

Is it possible to develop closed source applications without paying anybody
and with some clear licensing stuff.

Which one i should go with RTLinux / RTAI.. ?

RTAI is under LGPL license, that means [correct me if 'm wrong] i have
the liberty to fiddle with the RTAI source.

Well, would be great if someone can jes give the major differences and
advantages in terms of licensing between these two.

- Tom

--
Engineering is one of the few professions learned mostly at job.

by **David Laigh** » Sun, 24 Feb 2002 20:44:32

Quote:> RTAI is under LGPL license, that means [correct me if 'm wrong] i have
> the liberty to fiddle with the RTAI source.

I would be extrememly careful of doing anything commercial based
on code that is under a LGPL license. As well as requiring you
to make available any changes you make to the supplied code
(maybe not unreasonable), it is quite likely that the LGPL
license will apply to your entire product - Which I presume
is not precisely what you had in mind.

David

by **Joe Chun** » Mon, 25 Feb 2002 06:59:14

> > RTAI is under LGPL license, that means [correct me if 'm wrong] i have
> > the liberty to fiddle with the RTAI source.

> I would be extrememly careful of doing anything commercial based
> on code that is under a LGPL license. As well as requiring you
> to make available any changes you make to the supplied code
> (maybe not unreasonable), it is quite likely that the LGPL
> license will apply to your entire product - Which I presume
> is not precisely what you had in mind.

> David

I thought that LGPL allows you to link your code to it w/o having to
release the source code of your product. Otherwise, commercial solutions
based on Linux would never really work.

GPL is the one that requries you to release your entire code in source.

-jc
--
(apply 'concat (reverse (list "com"
(char-to-string 46) "yahoo"
(char-to-string 64) "joechung")))

by **Leonid Rosenboi** » Mon, 25 Feb 2002 15:59:28

This is an extremely interesting subject.

There is one key difference between Linux and embedded applications - on
Linux your proprietary code can be a separate executable file, which allows
you to keep your
proprietary code to yourself, but have to disclose any modifications to the
kernel or library,
because they are within the same binary object with the GPL code.
In embedded, you typically link eveerything into a single binary image, one
needs to very
carefully read the license text to figure out what that really means.
My guess is that if you involve a lawyer, he will tell you that GPL is
extremely dangerous,
but in practice, there is really noone to sue you, the open source community
barely makes
money to maintain the software, so it is highly doubtful that they can
afford littigation.
Still, your investors will side with the lawyers and will regard sloppy GPL
practices gravely.

- Leonid
P.S. WindRiver has got plenty of public source code witnin theur product,
and nobody
sued them this far.

> > > RTAI is under LGPL license, that means [correct me if 'm wrong] i
have
> > > the liberty to fiddle with the RTAI source.

> > I would be extrememly careful of doing anything commercial based
> > on code that is under a LGPL license. As well as requiring you
> > to make available any changes you make to the supplied code
> > (maybe not unreasonable), it is quite likely that the LGPL
> > license will apply to your entire product - Which I presume
> > is not precisely what you had in mind.

> > David

> I thought that LGPL allows you to link your code to it w/o having to
> release the source code of your product. Otherwise, commercial solutions
> based on Linux would never really work.

> GPL is the one that requries you to release your entire code in source.

> -jc
> --
> (apply 'concat (reverse (list "com"
> (char-to-string 46) "yahoo"
> (char-to-string 64) "joechung")))

by **David Laigh** » Tue, 26 Feb 2002 08:22:39

> This is an extremely interesting subject.

> There is one key difference between Linux and embedded applications - on
> Linux your proprietary code can be a separate executable file, which allows
> you to keep your
> proprietary code to yourself, but have to disclose any modifications to the
> kernel or library,
> because they are within the same binary object with the GPL code.

True.

Quote:> In embedded, you typically link eveerything into a single binary image, one
> needs to very
> carefully read the license text to figure out what that really means.
> My guess is that if you involve a lawyer, he will tell you that GPL is
> extremely dangerous,
> but in practice, there is really noone to sue you, the open source community
> barely makes
> money to maintain the software, so it is highly doubtful that they can
> afford littigation.
> Still, your investors will side with the lawyers and will regard sloppy GPL
> practices gravely.

Except that the FSF backs the GPL and LGPL licenses and does have
good lawyers. As yet no corporation has actually tested whether the
viral nature of LGPL is legal (in the US) - they have all given in
to the FSF.

Quote:> P.S. WindRiver has got plenty of public source code witnin theur product,
> and nobody sued them this far.

I believe most of that is from NetBSD - which is under a different
license which does allow it to be fiddled with....

by **Wolfgang Den** » Tue, 26 Feb 2002 09:02:28

>In embedded, you typically link eveerything into a single binary image, one
>needs to very
>carefully read the license text to figure out what that really means.

Let's stick with RTLinux and RTAI here. With RTAI, you don't link
your code into one image with the RTAI core modules (which are
GPLed). You just use the API. That's a completely different story.

Read Eben Moglen's statement about this issue (see
http://realtimelinux.org/archives/rtai/200110/0095.html)

Quote:>My guess is that if you involve a lawyer, he will tell you that GPL is
>extremely dangerous,

Hire a better lawyer.

Quote:>P.S. WindRiver has got plenty of public source code witnin theur product,
>and nobody
>sued them this far.

Including GPL code in a commercial product is NO PROBLEM as long as
you follow the rules. MANY companies do.

I am pretty sure WRS will give you the sources of their C compiler
(GCC) if you kindly ask for it ;-)

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Web: www.denx.de
Documentation is the castor oil of programming.
Managers know it must be good because the programmers hate it so much.

by **Wolfgang Den** » Tue, 26 Feb 2002 08:55:57

> Is it possible to develop closed source applications without paying anybody
> and with some clear licensing stuff.

Yes.

Quote:> Which one i should go with RTLinux / RTAI.. ?

Go RTAI.

Quote:> RTAI is under LGPL license, that means [correct me if 'm wrong] i have
> the liberty to fiddle with the RTAI source.

The RTAI core is under GPL, which is necessary to avoid conflicts
with the evil RTLinux patent license. Your application is not
affected by this.

Quote:> Well, would be great if someone can jes give the major differences and
> advantages in terms of licensing between these two.

RTLinux is under the RTLinux patent license.
RTAI is GPL and free.

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Web: www.denx.de
"Do we define evil as the absence of goodness? It seems only logical
that shit happens--we discover this by the process of elimination."
-- Larry Wall

by **Wolfgang Den** » Tue, 26 Feb 2002 08:57:12

>I thought that LGPL allows you to link your code to it w/o having to
>release the source code of your product. Otherwise, commercial solutions
>based on Linux would never really work.
>GPL is the one that requries you to release your entire code in source.

But you do not actually link your code against any RTAI core modules.
For application code, you just use the API.

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Web: www.denx.de
"There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about
them" - Heisenberg

by **Robert Schwebe** » Tue, 26 Feb 2002 05:44:55

> I would be extrememly careful of doing anything commercial based
> on code that is under a LGPL license. As well as requiring you
> to make available any changes you make to the supplied code
> (maybe not unreasonable), it is quite likely that the LGPL
> license will apply to your entire product - Which I presume
> is not precisely what you had in mind.

If you use LGPL code in you project you have to make it LGPL. If you
just link against a library (for RTAI: rtai_something.o) you can do
whatever you want with your own code.

The question you want to have resolved is: are proprietary Linux modules
allowed or not. Most kernel developers seem to agree that they are
allowed; some do not agree. If you want to have a definite answer ask
your lawyer.

by **Thomas Horste** » Wed, 27 Feb 2002 02:39:49

Quote:> I would be extrememly careful of doing anything commercial based
> on code that is under a LGPL license. As well as requiring you
> to make available any changes you make to the supplied code
> (maybe not unreasonable), it is quite likely that the LGPL
> license will apply to your entire product - Which I presume
> is not precisely what you had in mind.

No, the whole purpose of the LGPL license is that, unlike GPL, you can link
it with proprietary code without restrictions. LGPL doesn't "taint" the
linked code.

You must still release the source of any modified LGPL code, though.

http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/lesser.html

// Thomas

by **David Laigh** » Wed, 27 Feb 2002 03:19:53

>>I would be extrememly careful of doing anything commercial based
>>on code that is under a LGPL license. As well as requiring you
>>to make available any changes you make to the supplied code
>>(maybe not unreasonable), it is quite likely that the LGPL
>>license will apply to your entire product - Which I presume
>>is not precisely what you had in mind.

> No, the whole purpose of the LGPL license is that, unlike GPL, you can link
> it with proprietary code without restrictions. LGPL doesn't "taint" the
> linked code.

> You must still release the source of any modified LGPL code, though.

I read the standard GPL license today, I now have a plan :-)

I'm going to write the 'universal' program that does everything
you might want a program to do, and ship it under the GPL.
Now I'll make absolutely sure that it announces that it is
available under the GPL, and put in the relevent commands to
display all the relevant license and copyright stuff.

Of course, the program is supplied 'as is' with no 'fitness for
purpose' implied. Indeed many people will find it somewhat
buggy and missing important features when they try to use it.

However once someone has looked at my program, absolutely
ANYTHING they write is just a bug fix to it - and hence
covered by the GPL license :-)

Indeed even if they haven't seen my program, it might be difficult
to prove - after all their program will clearly contain large
amounts of my program - and my program claims to do what theirs
actually does.

David

by To » Thu, 28 Feb 2002 22:42:42

What if 'm developing a library which uses RTLinux Kernel and
taking an assumption 'm not changing any RTLinux kernel source.
Now i guess i don't neeed to pay any royalty.... As well now can I
release my library either under GPL or Proprietary or wahtever ??

> > Is it possible to develop closed source applications without paying anybody
> > and with some clear licensing stuff.

> Yes.

> > Which one i should go with RTLinux / RTAI.. ?

> Go RTAI.

> > RTAI is under LGPL license, that means [correct me if 'm wrong] i have
> > the liberty to fiddle with the RTAI source.

> The RTAI core is under GPL, which is necessary to avoid conflicts
> with the evil RTLinux patent license. Your application is not
> affected by this.

> > Well, would be great if someone can jes give the major differences and
> > advantages in terms of licensing between these two.

> RTLinux is under the RTLinux patent license.
> RTAI is GPL and free.

> Wolfgang Denk

by **Wolfgang Den** » Fri, 01 Mar 2002 09:57:51

>What if 'm developing a library which uses RTLinux Kernel and
>taking an assumption 'm not changing any RTLinux kernel source.
>Now i guess i don't neeed to pay any royalty.... As well now can I

You don't want to guess. You want to consult your layer. And good
luck with the interpretation of the details of the RTL license.

Quote:>release my library either under GPL or Proprietary or wahtever ??

Make it GPL. What else?

Wolfgang Denk

--
Software Engineering: Embedded and Realtime Systems, Embedded Linux
Phone: (+49)-8142-4596-87 Fax: (+49)-8142-4596-88 Web: www.denx.de
"In the long run, every program becomes rococo, and then rubble."
- Alan Perlis

by **Dave Kor** » Tue, 05 Mar 2002 22:57:06

Quote:> - Leonid
> P.S. WindRiver has got plenty of public source code witnin theur product,
> and nobody
> sued them this far.

WRS have a licensing agreement from the FSF, and they do give out the source
code to their gnu-derived toolchain (eventually!)

DaveK
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Very Computer

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI

Licensing Issues in RTLinux and RTAI