[U-Boot] [PATCH 25/25] x86: Add a README.x86 for U-Boot on x86 support

Fri Dec 5 20:05:30 CET 2014

Hi Bruce,

On 5 December 2014 at 11:34,  <Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com> wrote:
> Hi Simon, Bin,
>
> u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de wrote on 12/04/2014 04:03:54 PM:
>
>> From: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>> To: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn at gmail.com>
>> Cc: U-Boot Mailing List <u-boot at lists.denx.de>
>> Date: 12/04/2014 04:04 PM
>> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] [PATCH 25/25] x86: Add a README.x86 for U-Boot
>> on x86 support
>> Sent by: u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de
>>
>> Hi Bin,
>>
>> On 4 December 2014 at 08:04, Bin Meng <bmeng.cn at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Signed-off-by: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn at gmail.com>
>> > ---
>> >  doc/README.x86 | 123 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>> +++++++++++++
>> >  1 file changed, 123 insertions(+)
>> >  create mode 100644 doc/README.x86
>> >
>> > diff --git a/doc/README.x86 b/doc/README.x86
>> > new file mode 100644
>> > index 0000000..a79f510
>> > --- /dev/null
>> > +++ b/doc/README.x86
>> > @@ -0,0 +1,123 @@
>> > +#
>> > +# Copyright (C) 2014, Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>> > +# Copyright (C) 2014, Bin Meng <bmeng.cn at gmail.com>
>> > +#
>> > +# SPDX-License-Identifier:     GPL-2.0+
>> > +#
>> > +
>> > +U-Boot on x86
>> > +=============
>>
>> Very nice!
>>
>
> This is all really great work.
>
> I do have a question though, and if it's already been asked/answered and I
> missed the thread I apologize for the noise.  Part of the reason we've held
> off on doing this project (other than resources of course :) ) was a concern
> about licensing.  U-boot is released under the GPL and we're worried that by
> linking in Intel's FSP we're creating a "derived work" that would then
> require Intel to release the source for the FSP, which they aren't going to
> do and would leave us open to law suits.  Doing it by calls into an opaque
> blob can loosely be defined as a dynamically linked library and therefore
> fall under the GPL exception clause, but our legal department considers that
> a dangerous assumption on our part.
>
> Has anyone considered this issue?  I'm not a lawyer so I get lost in the
> legalize of licences pretty fast.
>
> Thanks again for all the work.

Well if you a legal department, that's what you pay them for and they
should be able to figure this out. Clearly if it were not permitted to
use the binary blobs in open source software then the blobs wouldn't
be very useful. But I'm not a lawyer either and am not qualified to
provide legal advice! It would be useful if you could post what you
find either way. And if for some reason there is a problem, we could
take it up with Intel.

You can get to the license here:

http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/intelligent-systems/intel-firmware-support-package/intel-fsp-overview.html

This is what it says today:

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Regards,
Simon