EDI Licence

[AJ]

Hi,

I am looking at a way of my boot loader to be extensible as far as disk drivers are concerned, and I was looking at EDI as hosted by JamesM. My reasoning for (partially) supporting this in a boot loader, is that I can then extend the boot loader with drivers written for my kernel (this was never meant to be a small boot loader and is designed for contemporary PC's!).

The only thing is, I haven't yet decided on a licence for my source and EDI is under GNU GPL with no apparent "get out" clauses like with gcc ("as an exception you may use this header without your project becoming GPL'd...").

This seems fairly clear cut but I just wanted to confirm before I start adding EDI support that my entire boot loader and kernel would have to be GPL'd if I want EDI. It seems to me like writing my own headers wouldn't get around the problem because these would constitute a "derived work".

Who knows, I may want to go GPL later anyway, but I want the flexibility to choose my own licence later on. I know I won't get any professional legal advice from these forums but I'd be glad to hear any comments/views.

Cheers,
Adam

[JamesM]

I think that really the easiest solution is to ask Eli Gottlieb to change the licence. Something like the BSD licence is a lot less restrictive.

[AJ]

Will do - I'll try to get in touch and will let you know his response.

Cheers,
Adam

[quok]

I am looking at a way of my boot loader to be extensible as far as disk drivers are concerned, and I was looking at EDI as hosted by JamesM. My reasoning for (partially) supporting this in a boot loader, is that I can then extend the boot loader with drivers written for my kernel (this was never meant to be a small boot loader and is designed for contemporary PC's!).

Heh, I've been thinking about doing almost the same thing thing myself. I've got a stub loader that I use along with Grub to do things such as set a VBE mode, jump to long mode, and load the kernel. I've been very tempted to take my stub loader and just turn it into a full fledged boot manager, possibly even implementing support for multiboot. I thought it'd be pretty neat to be able to share drivers between my kernel and the boot manager, setting up a little environment that other OS's could use. The thought was "like EFI, but better." It'd basically abstract away BIOS and EFI and provide a nice little environment for a stub loader or kernel to start off in. Anyway, that's waaaaaay out there, and for now I just want to share my Ext2, FAT, and other drivers between the two.

The only thing is, I haven't yet decided on a licence for my source and EDI is under GNU GPL with no apparent "get out" clauses like with gcc ("as an exception you may use this header without your project becoming GPL'd...").

Hmm, I don't see mention to the GPL in the EDI Specification anywhere. The first page of the spec and all the code samples say it is governed under the Gnu Free Documentation License. But the problem is just as bad as if the spec was under the GPL itself. The FDL is just as "viral" as the GPL, so if you were to copy the code samples from the Specification then you'd basically have to put your bootloader and kernel under the GNU FDL as well.

IMO, the FDL is fine for the spec, but the BSD or ISC licenses would be better for the included source code samples. I didn't say public domain because of any oddball issues surrounding it in countries that don't have such a thing....

I wonder though, if you'd really be subject to the FDL if you used the specification to copy the API but implemented it yourself. At least here in the US it seems to be an accepted practice. That's similar to how WINE and ReactOS work anyway.

[AJ]

Hi,

I have had a reply which pretty much confirms what you think. To paraphrase, I have been informed that the GPL applies to the header files, not to the standard and that if you create your own headers, you can license them as you wish.

Call me paranoid, but while "COPYING" is included with the text and the individual headers are under this license, I won't be using EDI.

This License is a kind of "copyleft", which means that derivative
works of the document must themselves be free in the same sense. It
complements the GNU General Public License, which is a copyleft
license designed for free software.

I would be concerned from this that any of my own implementation of EDI would be considered "a derivative work of the document".

Cheers,
Adam

[JamesM]

Hi,

I would be concerned from this that any of my own implementation of EDI would be considered "a derivative work of the document".

I believe that doesn't apply to specifications. However, did you contact Eli? Even though I currently host it I'm powerless to change the licence it is under.

[AJ]

Yes I did - in addition to the response I have paraphrased above, the reply was "EDI is an interface - it does not carry a license."

However, from the license text in the documentation, I fail to see how this can be the case - or am I just being an idiot? [no answer required ]

Cheers,
Adam

[JamesM]

If he said that, then it's safe to delete the offending licence texts. Let me know if you want me to do this?