Re: Re: [oc] GNU LGPL license

[Richard Herveille <richard@asics.ws>]

> My personal opinion is that authors seriously trying to get their open
> cores into proprietary systems should not ask the company to open the rest
> of their system just because their open core is used in a system. Such
> extreme might work for software, but not for hardware (maybe in the future
> with new technologies). On the other hand the licensing of a open core
> should be such that asks the company to provide any improvements of the
> open core back to the community. I thought GNU LGPL is exactly the right
> license (or1200 uses it). After discussion with Victor I now know that GNU
> LGPL causes a serious problem for the companies because the netlist should
> be open (as per GNU LGPL section 5). I agree with John Dalton that we
> should not have tens of different licenses, but unfortunately I haven't
> been able to find a license that would both make an open core free and at
> the same time require changes to get back to the community. I checked the
> BSD license, and it would only make an open core free and not require any
> changes to come back to the community. I checked the GNU page John
> suggested and GNU LGPL is the closest to want I'd like from a license. Now
> what? Should we modify GNU LGPL to better fit hardware?
>
> regards,
> Damjan
>

It's too bad there's such a big lag on the mailinglist.

I too checked the available licenses, and GPL or LPGL are the one that 
matches our requirements closest.

In one of my previous emails about this I suggested an addendum with an 
exception clause for clausule 5, 6. I still think this is the best way to go. 
We do not modify the original license, thereby undermining the maintainers of 
the GNU licenses, we merely add and exception to make it better suited for 
hardware projects. This is perfectly legal, and holds up in court.

Richard
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