65f66c170e
Various consistency and correctness improvements. Also removing some sentences that are not or no longer relevant. Signed-off-by: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be> Acked-by: Samuel Martin <s.martin49@gmail.com> Signed-off-by: Peter Korsgaard <jacmet@sunsite.dk>
148 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
148 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
// -*- mode:doc; -*-
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[[legal-info]]
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Legal notice and licensing
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==========================
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Complying with open source licenses
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-----------------------------------
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All of the end products of Buildroot (toolchain, root filesystem, kernel,
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bootloaders) contain open source software, released under various licenses.
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Using open source software gives you the freedom to build rich embedded
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systems, choosing from a wide range of packages, but also imposes some
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obligations that you must know and honour.
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Some licenses require you to publish the license text in the documentation of
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your product. Others require you to redistribute the source code of the
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software to those that receive your product.
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The exact requirements of each license are documented in each package, and
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it is your responsibility (or that of your legal office) to comply with those
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requirements.
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To make this easier for you, Buildroot can collect for you some material you
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will probably need. To produce this material, after you have configured
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Buildroot with +make menuconfig+, +make xconfig+ or +make gconfig+, run:
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--------------------
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make legal-info
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--------------------
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Buildroot will collect legally-relevant material in your output directory,
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under the +legal-info/+ subdirectory.
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There you will find:
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* A +README+ file, that summarizes the produced material and contains warnings
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about material that Buildroot could not produce.
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* +buildroot.config+: this is the Buildroot configuration file that is usually
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produced with +make menuconfig+, and which is necessary to reproduce the
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build.
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* The source code for all packages; this is saved in the +sources/+
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subdirectory (except for proprietary packages, whose source code is not
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saved);
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patches applied to some packages by Buildroot are distributed with the
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Buildroot sources and are not duplicated in the +sources/+ subdirectory.
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* A manifest file listing the configured packages, their version, license and
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related information.
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Some of this information might not be defined in Buildroot; such items are
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marked as "unknown".
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* A +licenses/+ subdirectory, which contains the license text of packages.
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If the license file(s) are not defined in Buildroot, the file is not produced
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and a warning in the +README+ indicates this.
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Please note that the aim of the +legal-info+ feature of Buildroot is to
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produce all the material that is somehow relevant for legal compliance with the
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package licenses. Buildroot does not try to produce the exact material that
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you must somehow make public. Certainly, more material is produced than is
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needed for a strict legal compliance. For example, it produces the source code
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for packages released under BSD-like licenses, that you are not required to
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redistribute in source form.
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Moreover, due to technical limitations, Buildroot does not produce some
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material that you will or may need, such as the toolchain source code and the
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Buildroot source code itself (including patches to packages for which source
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distribution is required).
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When you run +make legal-info+, Buildroot produces warnings in the +README+
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file to inform you of relevant material that could not be saved.
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[[legal-info-list-licenses]]
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License abbreviations
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---------------------
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Here is a list of the licenses that are most widely used by packages in
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Buildroot, with the name used in the manifest file:
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* `GPLv2`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[
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GNU General Public License, version 2];
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* `GPLv2+`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[
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GNU General Public License, version 2]
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or (at your option) any later version;
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* `GPLv3`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html[
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GNU General Public License, version 3];
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* `GPLv3+`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html[
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GNU General Public License, version 3]
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or (at your option) any later version;
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* `GPL`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html[
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GNU General Public License] (any version);
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* `LGPLv2`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.0.html[
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GNU Library General Public License, version 2];
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* `LGPLv2+`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.0.html[
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GNU Library General Public License, version 2.1]
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or (at your option) any later version;
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* `LGPLv2.1`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html[
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GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1];
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* `LGPLv2.1+`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/lgpl-2.1.html[
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GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1]
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or (at your option) any later version;
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* `LGPLv3`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html[
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GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3];
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* `LGPLv3+`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html[
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GNU Lesser General Public License, version 3]
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or (at your option) any later version;
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* `LGPL`:
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html[
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GNU Lesser General Public License] (any version);
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* `BSD-4c`: Original BSD 4-clause license;
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* `BSD-3c`: BSD 3-clause license;
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* `BSD-2c`: BSD 2-clause license;
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* `MIT`: MIT-style license.
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Complying with the Buildroot license
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------------------------------------
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Buildroot itself is an open source software, released under the
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU General Public
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License, version 2] or (at your option) any later version.
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However, being a build system, it is not normally part of the end product:
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if you develop the root filesystem, kernel, bootloader or toolchain for a
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device, the code of Buildroot is only present on the development machine, not
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in the device storage.
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Nevertheless, the general view of the Buildroot developers is that you should
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release the Buildroot source code along with the source code of other packages
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when releasing a product that contains GPL-licensed software.
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This is because the
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http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU GPL]
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defines the "'complete source code'" for an executable work as "'all the
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source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface
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definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation
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of the executable'".
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Buildroot is part of the 'scripts used to control compilation and
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installation of the executable', and as such it is considered part of the
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material that must be redistributed.
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Keep in mind that this is only the Buildroot developers' opinion, and you
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should consult your legal department or lawyer in case of any doubt.
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