[U-Boot] U-book and GPLv3? (fwd)

[Jon Smirl]

On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 12:56 PM, Detlev Zundel<dzu at denx.de> wrote:
> Hi Jon,
>
>> There is an enormous practical consideration stopping the licensing
>> change. u-boot has not required copyright assignment. This means that
>> every single person that has contributed code to u-boot needs to give
>> their permission for the change.
>
> This is not correct.  People who wrote code under "GPLv2 or later"
> licenses would not need to be queried.  The project could use the
> sources under a later version.

There is a mix of GPLv2 or later and GPLv2 code. You will have to sort
which license applies. Let's hope nobody modified a GPL v2 header in
any file to say "GPL v2 or later". That would open a giant can of
worms.

This is a giant administrative nightmare. The effort for doing this
exceeds the effort require to write a new boot loader.  Require
copyright assignment on the new boot loader and then the license can
be easily changed.

-- 
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl at gmail.com