| FreakZ Simulator and USB Hardware Command Line Interface User Guide | | Print | |
| Written by Akiba | |
| Wednesday, 17 June 2009 | |
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I just finished writing the Simulator and Hardware Command Line Interface User Guide document. I was originally going to release this document and the code together, however the whole GPL license thing kind of took me by surprise. I'm initially going to tack on an exception to the GPL for the Zigbee Alliance membership fee so that I can get the code out quickly. I'm hoping that it will be within the next two days. However this is only temporary and it makes so that this code can't be used with any other GPL projects due to the exception. In the meantime, the license is going to be in limbo until either the Zigbee Alliance decides to open up Adopter membership (not very likely) or I decide on a new license. It's tough to give a timeframe on this, but I'm not going to drag it out too long. I'm leaning towards just going BSD to avoid this whole fiasco as well as the Certicom patent issue which would require an additional exception to the GPL. Of course, I'd have to give up on my idea of keeping the code open, but then the GPL is a weak tool against people that really don't care to adhere to the terms anyways. Oh well, another day, another issue...it's a beautiful day in Tokyo and the air is clean because of recent rainstorms. I'm going out to walk my dog and enjoy the weather. I hope you all have the same good luck :) Here's the document. The code should follow within a few days. Hits: 907 Trackback(0)
Comments (3)
  written by Akiba, June 18, 2009
GPL Violations deals mostly with companies that violate the terms of the GPL. In this case, there isn't a GPL violation, as much as a mistake on my part for overlooking the membership requirement as a licensing fee.
Although I can do a dual-licensing scheme with the GPL, I'm not really interested in selling software. It's messy and requires a lot of legal contracts. I'm mostly interested in keeping the software open and getting it in the hands of the smaller guys that can come up with more innovative things, ie: the hackers. If it can't be accomplished via the GPL, I need to consider a tradeoff of what my goals are vs. what's available to me. BSD is an option, and if the Zigbee Alliance decides to follow Bluetooth's lead, then GPL can still be an option. However I don't want to take a long time for this decision. It's basically the same as the other engineering tradeoffs I've had to make on the stack, only this time it deals with the licensing. I also understand that many people won't be happy with a BSD stack because there is a lot of usage without any kind of return contribution. If I do decide on the BSD, and you want to make a contribution, you can assign any license to your contribution and if it's more restrictive than the BSD, it will take precedence. Right now, I just need to decide what's the best way to fulfill my social goals for this project, in light of the GPL issue that was brought up, and do it in a way that can get the code out without having to wait six months for a decision by the Zigbee Alliance. It's such a headache. report abuse
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written by Akiba, June 18, 2009
FYI, I am posting a message on the GPL violations mailing list just to get their opinion.
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Altourgh there is no such violation yet, the people there seems to have
a great deal of experience with GPL licensing and could provide helpful insight?
As a personal opinion I woudl perfer GPL over BSD, you keep the control over the
software and if someone want to use your code in a closed source product you can
sell them the software under another license (as long as you own the copyright of
all the codebase). I know people who did that and it works well.
With BSD software there is no way to do this... People will just use it without
returning any advantage to you
Aurélien