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      /  New UBoot ?
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umisef 
Re: New UBoot ?
Posted on 20-Nov-2007 12:45:23
#21 ]
Super Member
Joined: 19-Jun-2005
Posts: 1714
From: Melbourne, Australia

@Rogue

Quote:
Quote:
You have, in the past, distributed U-Boot updates as binaries, and on at least one occasion have provided the source on request. Are you now saying that one could not have built the binary from the source?


Of course you can, but you cannot run AmigaOS because AmigaOS uses code in the ROM that is not GPL'ed.


I repeat my question --- can one create the binary you distributed from the sources you distriubted?

People flashed their A1s with the binary you distributed, and are presumably running OS4. So if the source matches the binary, why would one not be able to run OS4 after rebuilding? And if the source does *not* match the single distributed binary, why do you believe you are in compliance with the GPL?

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AmiDog 
Re: New UBoot ?
Posted on 20-Nov-2007 14:23:05
#22 ]
Cult Member
Joined: 1-Jun-2004
Posts: 917
From: Kumla, Sweden

@umisef

So, what you are saying is that one can't distribute, for example, an ISO-image with both GPL and non-GPL-software on it as it's "the same binary"? That makes no sense at all. I fail to see the difference between a BIOS image and a CD-ROM image or a disk image or whatever, with seperate pieces of software on it. It seems rather stupid if GPL would force you to distribute the <whatever> image as two (or several) pieces.

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Darth_X 
Re: New UBoot ?
Posted on 20-Nov-2007 20:17:27
#23 ]
Elite Member
Joined: 1-Jun-2003
Posts: 2997
From: Vancouver Island, Canada

@Rogue

Quote:

Rogue wrote:
@umisef

Quote:
You have, in the past, distributed U-Boot updates as binaries, and on at least one occasion have provided the source on request. Are you now saying that one could not have built the binary from the source?


Of course you can, but you cannot run AmigaOS because AmigaOS uses code in the ROM that is not GPL'ed.

This code is not executed by U-Boot, it's merely distributed in the same ROM, so this is not a derivate work.


This would be the OS4 "DRM" code?

_________________
Men who have girlies in their avatars are Girliemen!

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nine 
Re: New UBoot ?
Posted on 20-Nov-2007 22:24:23
#24 ]
Regular Member
Joined: 23-Aug-2005
Posts: 132
From: UK

@umisef

(introductory disclaimer: I am very pro-GPL. I'm also pro-Amiga. I'm not sure these two are fundamentally compatible And this is intended as an observation of licenses, not a criticism!)

Quote:
Uhm, considering that those same things are likely part of a binary which you distributed, you might want to reconsider. The whole *point* of the GPL is that people *can* benefit from improvements to the GPL'ed code, so if you combine the GPL'ed code with non-GPL'ed code in a way which prevents benefitting from improvements, you are likely in violation of the license.


The U-Boot license states:

Quote:
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover the so-called "standalone"
applications that use U-Boot services by means of the jump table
provided by U-Boot exactly for this purpose - this is merely
considered normal use of U-Boot, and does *not* fall under the
heading of "derived work".


This is likely the way that Hyperion's extensions gain their exclusion. I'm fairly sure that Hyperion would have checked this out.

The GPL license does require that binaries can be rebuilt in order to produce the same binary that is supplied with the binary distribution. Some vendors (Netgear for one) supply a binary part of pieces they do not wish to/are unable to release the source for, meaning the full binary can be rebuilt. It's highly likely that Hyperion do not wish to do this as it would expose in one binary chunk the key to what ties OS4 to the hardware it runs on. This is optional.

But the source to build the unencumbered part of the firmware ROM and build configuration should be supplied.

I notice that OS4 and the SDK include a library called "newlib". If this is the same newlib which is distributed under a variety of opensource licenses (including LGPL and BSD), then it may also require a source release of some kind.

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umisef 
Re: New UBoot ?
Posted on 21-Nov-2007 21:21:25
#25 ]
Super Member
Joined: 19-Jun-2005
Posts: 1714
From: Melbourne, Australia

@AmiDog

Quote:
I fail to see the difference between a BIOS image and a CD-ROM image or a disk image or whatever, with seperate pieces of software on it.


If you don't see the difference, I *really* can't help you much.

For the ISO image, it is trivial to (a) extract the individual parts, (b) to replace any number of them without touching the rest, and (c) to re-create a fully working ISO image which contains all the separate pieces of software on them, some of them improved.

In the case of the AmigaOne Firmware Image, (a) is pretty much impossible. An arbitrary concatenation of binary code without any well-documented structure (like, say, an ISO image), with no tools to extract and create (like, say, various proprietary archivers/unarchivers), with no published scripts as to how it is created, and with source unavailable for parts of it --- that's not like an ISO image at all.

Quote:
It seems rather stupid if GPL would force you to distribute the image as two (or several) pieces.


It doesn't. It does however require that the user must be able to recreate the distributed binary from the distributed sources. If that recreation involves some magic involving a proprietary binary, then that magic must be obvious (in fact, the GPL requires that the scripts which presumably do the magic be included), and the binary must be available somehow (most easily by being extracted from the binary, but distributing a separate object file is also acceptable).

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