Re: EP93XX and TS-72XX

[Christian Gagneraud <cgagneraud at techworks dot ie>]

John Dallaway wrote:
> Hi Christian
>
> Christian Gagneraud wrote:
>
> > John Dallaway wrote:
> >
> > > I suggest you talk with Technologic Systems about this in the first
> > > instance since all code contributions are subject to copyright
> > > assignment.
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, to be integrated upstream, the copyright have
> > to be granted to the FSF, is that right?
>
> Correct. Copyright in all contributions to the public eCos sources must
> be assigned to the FSF as part of the contribution process.
>
> > Ecos v2.0 was copyright Red Hat
> > and licensed under the eCos License and/or the GPL, and now v3.0 is
> > copyright FSF and is licensed under the GPL only(?).
>
> Not exactly. The run-time sources in eCos 2.0 and later releases are
> licensed under a modified version of the GPL with a very important
> exception clause. Ref:
>
>   http://ecos.sourceware.org/license-overview.html
>
> > By greping through the patch I've generated myself, i've found:
> >
> > Mixed copyright:
> >  - Cirrus logic (from bug report 1000739)
>
> The contributor will assign copyright to the FSF as part of the
> contribution process. Hopefully no problem here.
>
> >  - Red Hat, Inc. (I guess these are files copied over and then adapted)
>
> Red Hat have assigned all their copyright in eCos to the FSF since eCos
> 2.0 was released. No problem.
>
> >  - Technologic System (at least redboot/version.c, where they've added a
> > copyright print statement)
>
> All changes and additions made by Technologic Systems would need to be
> identified (regardless of whether they've added a copyright line) and
> assigned to the FSF.
>
> > Authors and contributor:
> >  - gthomas
> >  - hmt
> >  - Jesse Off
> >  - jordan
> >  - jskov
> >  - nickg
> >  - Travis C. Furrer
> >  - rgorsegn
>
> The above contributors will have already assigned copyright directly or
> indirectly to the FSF.
>
> > So the best would be to ask TS if they can provide officially a patch
> > against an official version of ecos with all the copyright statements
> > updated.
>
> For avoidance of doubt, the current holders of copyright in the platform
> port, relevant drivers and any other contributed code (presumably
> Technologic Systems) would also need to provide a copyright assignment. Ref:
>
>   http://ecos.sourceware.org/assign.html
>
> A patch against the HEAD of the eCos CVS repository is preferable.

OK. I see 3 different possible scenario:

 - They accept to publish a patch agains CVS HEAD or decent recent 
version (>=3.0) *AND* they assign copyright to the FSF *AND* they 
provide the copyright assignment

Ideal case.

 - Same but for the version of ecos they based their port on.

Still OK, because we can re-use their work and port ourself to ecos CVS.

 - None of them, status-quo
In that case, it means someone would have to port the TS-72XX himself 
once the EP93xx is there or while the EP93XX is ongoing, and *without* 
re-using code from TS own port.

Thanks for the clarifications.
Chris

> John Dallaway