From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 13:44:44 -0700 From: Larry McVoy To: Christoph Hellwig Cc: akuster@mvista.com, linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org Subject: Re: GPL inconsistency in arch/ppc/ocp/xlinx/ Message-ID: <20030612204444.GA19453@work.bitmover.com> References: <20030524201213.GA8256@lst.de> <20030612203205.GA23017@lst.de> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii In-Reply-To: <20030612203205.GA23017@lst.de> Sender: owner-linuxppc-dev@lists.linuxppc.org List-Id: On Thu, Jun 12, 2003 at 10:32:05PM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > On Sat, May 24, 2003 at 10:12:13PM +0200, Christoph Hellwig wrote: > > Hi Armin, > > > > you seem to have added the the directory in the topic to the LinuxPPC > > trees. Unfortunately they have a license consitency that basically > > makes them illegal to distribute, they claim to be under GPL but have > > the following notice: > > > > * Xilinx products are not intended for use in life support appliances, > > * devices, or systems. Use in such applications are expressly prohibited. > > > > Could you please contact Xilinc to clarify the license and/or remove > > those files from the tree? Thanks. > > As there hasn't been any answer yet I think these files should be > remove to ensure the linuxppc tree is legally distributable. Note: I don't care one way or the other how or if this is resolved. I'm just making an observation. You might want to be careful about advertising why you want these files removed because the Xilinx clause is just covering their butt. If someone uses Linux in some life support system and someone dies, the fact that the community removed these files because of that clause could be construed as a statement that Linux was suitable for life support systems. It gives the lawyers ammo. Personally, I wouldn't get that excited about that clause, I think that enforcing the GPL to that extent on principle is likely to backfire. But that's my opinion and worth what you paid for it. Neither I nor BitMover have any sort of relationship with Xilinx, this is just my opinion. -- --- Larry McVoy lm at bitmover.com http://www.bitmover.com/lm ** Sent via the linuxppc-dev mail list. See http://lists.linuxppc.org/