Re: [Etherboot-developers] Q: GPL license clarification.

[Marty C. <md...@et...>]

On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 04:24  AM, Eric W. Biederman wrote:
> Both the Linux kernel and dosemu have similar provisions in
> their preamble to clarify the intention of the developers.
> I have no wish to actually modify the license just to make
> it perfectly clear to BIOS vendors that etherboot is not
> a danger to them.

Such a clarification seems reasonable to me.

The GPL does place certain other responsibilities on a vendor wishing 
to distribute software that has been placed under the GPL. The 
provision about making the source code available comes to mind. It is 
not difficult to fulfill, but adds some overhead to using GPL software.

I have noted that the FSF has made efforts of late to inform business 
users that Free Software terms are not necessarily incompatible with 
commercial interests.

Here is a useful link on the FSF site:

     http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLInProprietarySystem

It says in part:

...
However, in many cases you can distribute the GPL-covered software 
alongside your proprietary system. To do this validly, you must make 
sure that the free and non-free programs communicate at arms length, 
that they are not combined in a way that would make them effectively a 
single program.

The difference between this and "incorporating" the GPL-covered 
software is partly a matter of substance and partly form. The 
substantive part is this: if the two programs are combined so that they 
become effectively two parts of one program, then you can't treat them 
as two separate programs. So the GPL has to cover the whole thing.
...

Now, one could argue that Etherboot, because it can stand alone and run 
on bare metal is separable, and thus could be inserted into a BIOS chip 
as a storage medium, and because of the mechanism the BIOS uses to scan 
for extension ROMs, remains a separate program, and thus does not 
require the BIOS vendor to distribute the entire BIOS under the GPL.

Because the BIOS extension mechanism was created to allow vendors to 
use code that may in fact be unknown to the BIOS manufacturer when the 
BIOS is produced, as long as they follow the PNP BIOS specification, I 
think one could reasonably argue that Etherboot fits within the spirit 
of the GPL with regard to aggregation.

In fairness, I must admit to seeing the other side of the argument, 
that hinges on the phrase "combined so that they become effectively two 
parts of one program". the BIOS extension method does, at run-time, 
basically make the two pieces of code virtually a single unit. It's 
just that when you're at bare-metal, _any_ use of other code would 
probably look like that because it's the most efficient way to do it.

That being said, I am going to suggest that Adaptec and 3Com who have 
extension BIOSes that are sometimes on their cards, and sometimes put 
into the motherboard flash storage unit to be loaded by the BIOS at 
run-time, retain their license terms.

So, I think we are safe (and reasonable) in our interpretation. If 
someone makes the argument that being a BIOS extension make us 
"effectively two parts of one program" at run-time there would be a lot 
of very unhappy vendors.

I will put in the standard disclaimer about not being an attorney, and 
though I believe that  my analysis is reasonable, it should not be, and 
is not intended to be relied upon in a legal context. One should seek 
"legally" sanctioned advice in this case. :)

Now where was I... oh yes, debugging PXE chaining...

Marty


-- 
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    Name: Marty Connor
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