From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Lars Reemts Date: Wed, 24 Aug 2011 17:25:20 +0200 Subject: [Buildroot] License for patches Message-ID: <4E5517E0.30003@finalbit.de> List-Id: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit To: buildroot@busybox.net Hi there, we are using Buildroot in an embedded Linux project for one of our customers. Discussing with the customer's lawyer the steps required by the customer in order to conform to the various open-source licenses involved, the following issue came up: Buildroot is licensed under the GPL. The packages buildroot builds are licensed under different licenses. Some of these liceses are incompatible with the GPL (e.g. the BSD style license of openssl or the LGPL license of uClibc). Which license is relevant for the package specific patches distributed by buildroot? Formally it must be the GPL. But if the patches are distributed under the GPL, this would result in an unresolvable license collision for some packages (e.g. openssl). All other patched packages would be infected by the GPL which would forbid dynamic linking of a proprietary software with e.g. uClibc. I'm sure there must be a resolution but I have been unable to convince the lawyer so far. What can I tell him to make him happy again? Any ideas? Best regards Lars Reemts