[U-Boot] U-book and GPLv3? (fwd)

Detlev Zundel
2009-06-25T11:25:37Z

Hi Jon,

> On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Detlev Zundel<dzu@denx.de> wrote:
>> Hi Jon,
>>
>>> There is an enormous practical consideration stopping the licensing
>>> change. u-boot has not required copyright assignment. This means that
>>> every single person that has contributed code to u-boot needs to give
>>> their permission for the change.
>>
>> This is not correct. ?People who wrote code under "GPLv2 or later"
>> licenses would not need to be queried. ?The project could use the
>> sources under a later version.
>
> There is a mix of GPLv2 or later and GPLv2 code. You will have to sort
> which license applies.

Sure.

> Let's hope nobody modified a GPL v2 header in any file to say "GPL v2
> or later". That would open a giant can of worms.

We can trace with through the version control - it is doable.

> This is a giant administrative nightmare. The effort for doing this
> exceeds the effort require to write a new boot loader. Require
> copyright assignment on the new boot loader and then the license can
> be easily changed.

How do you arrive at this conclusion? I rather say that if one was to
seriously try this it can be done in a few weeks/months by one or two
persons. The FSF offered to help track down people even.

Reimplementing the current U-Boot code base is orders of magnitude away
from this.

Cheers
Detlev

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