Is there a reason that graphics code can not be included in the GRUB2 project with its current license ?
My recollection was that the X11 license was considered "GPL compatible" in the sense that it *could* be relicensed if necessary. Graphics driver code is included in the Linux kernel without relicensing, ie it retains its current X11 license even though it lives in an otherwise GPLv2-licensed tree. Is there something about GPLv3 which prevents the same approach from being used, or are we just talking about a GRUB2 project rule which disallows "compatible" licenses and requires actual GPLv3 licensing ? -----Original Message----- From: xorg-boun...@lists.freedesktop.org [mailto:xorg-boun...@lists.freedesktop.org] On Behalf Of Daniel Clark Sent: Tuesday, March 16, 2010 11:25 AM To: Daniel Stone; Owain Ainsworth; Octavio Rossell; xorg@lists.freedesktop.org Cc: Vladimir 'φ-coder/phcoder' Serbinenko; Bernie Innocenti; Brett C Smith Subject: Re: Yeelong and SiliconMotion driver: asking for developers On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 5:16 AM, Daniel Stone <dan...@fooishbar.org> wrote: > Hi, > > On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 08:51:56AM +0000, Owain Ainsworth wrote: >> On Tue, Mar 09, 2010 at 10:22:28PM -0430, Octavio Rossell wrote: >> > The idea of this wiki: >> > http://gnu.org.ve/~octavio/lemote/doku.php?id=siliconmotiondriver >> > is to collect all info for makin this easy. If any of you have more >> > info or has a technical correction is ok (is on free editing mode) >> > but is only a space where to put the info with an universal scope. >> >> Can you please clarify what the comments about GPLv3 are supposed to >> mean on that page? Is it a reference to a non-public discussion? >> >> If the current driver is licensed under the MIT/X11 license (as it >> would appear that it is) changing it without adding substantial new >> work is legally questionable at best. Furthermore, changing this >> license after adding to it could be considered to be obnoxious and >> anti-community. > > Anyone's free to tack on a more restrictive license to their work, > which would bring the entire collection under the same license, but > yeah, it would be incredibly obnoxious. X.Org's does not (currently) > accept GPL packages anyway, so we couldn't merge it back. > > I heard vague rumblings about the FSF convincing Silicon Motion to > relicense it as GPLv3+ in private, with complete disregard for X.Org. > Good for the FSF: maybe they can do all the work on it then. I believe the issue there was that FSF needed some small subset of code dual-licensed to be able to incorporate it into GRUB2, which is GPLv3 - GRUB2 is very close to being able to be the only boot firmware on the actual hardware PLCC chip of the yeeloong, and of course would load before Xorg. I don't believe there is any intent to actually try to relicense X; as you are probably aware FSF has in the past helped the X project with licensing issues - http://www.fsf.org/news/thank-you-sgi - and knowing the people involved I sincerely doubt there is any intention to do anything that would splinter the Xorg codebase. -- Daniel JB Clark | http://pobox.com/~dclark | Activist; Owner \|/ FREEDOM -+-> INCLUDED ~ http://freedomincluded.com /|\ Free Software respecting hardware ~ Lemote Yeeloong reseller _______________________________________________ xorg@lists.freedesktop.org: X.Org support Archives: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg Info: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg _______________________________________________ xorg@lists.freedesktop.org: X.Org support Archives: http://lists.freedesktop.org/archives/xorg Info: http://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/xorg
