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manual: add advice about GPL compliance for Buildroot

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Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
Signed-off-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
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Luca Ceresoli 2012-05-17 19:33:08 +02:00 committed by Thomas Petazzoni
parent 00ba118fca
commit 1bb7a8ee4b
1 changed files with 27 additions and 0 deletions
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docs/manual/using.txt
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@ -284,3 +284,30 @@ Buildroot, with the name used in the manifest file:
* +BSD-2c+: BSD 2-clause license;
* +PROPRIETARY+: marks a non-opensource package;
Buildroot does not save any licensing info or source code for these packages.
Complying with the Buildroot license
------------------------------------
Buildroot itself is an opensource software, released under the
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU General Public
License, version 2] or (at your option) any later version.
However, being a build system, it is not normally part of the end product:
if you develop the root filesystem, kernel, bootloader or toolchain for a
device, the code of Buildroot is only present on the development machine, not
in the device storage.
Nevertheless, the general view of the Buildroot developers is that you should
release the Buildroot source code along with the source code of other packages
when releasing a product that contains GPL-licensed software.
This is because the
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU GPL]
defines the "'complete source code'" for an executable work as "'all the
source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation
of the executable'".
Buildroot is part of the 'scripts used to control compilation and
installation of the executable', and as such it is considered part of the
material that must be redistributed.
Keep in mind this is only the Buildroot developers' opinion, and you should
consult your legal department or lawyer in case of any doubt.