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

[Bin Meng]

Hi Bruce,

On Sat, Dec 6, 2014 at 4:02 AM,  <Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com> wrote:
> Hi Simon,
>
> sjg at google.com wrote on 12/05/2014 11:05:30 AM:
>
>> From: Simon Glass <sjg at chromium.org>
>> To: Bruce_Leonard at selinc.com
>> Cc: Bin Meng <bmeng.cn at gmail.com>, U-Boot Mailing List <u-
>> boot at lists.denx.de>, u-boot-bounces at lists.denx.de
>> Date: 12/05/2014 11:05 AM
>> Subject: Re: [U-Boot] [PATCH 25/25] x86: Add a README.x86 for U-Boot
>> on x86 support
>> Sent by: sjg at google.com
>>
>> 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 :) ) wasa
>> > 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.
>>
>>
>
> Thanks for the info.  We were sort of hoping that either the u-boot
> community or Denx SE may have already addressed this.  Probably what we'll
> have to do is get an Intel lawyer on the phone with a copy of both the GPL
> and the FSP licences and just go through them item by item.  We'll feedback
> to the list what we find out.
>
> Have a good weekend!
>
> V/r
> Bruce

Actually coreboot supports Intel FSP as well on several other
platforms already. There was once a thread talking about integrating
FSP which might be helpful on your questions. Check it out @
http://www.coreboot.org/pipermail/coreboot/2013-December/076801.html.
Looks Intel is OK to have coreboot to integrate the FSP binary blobs
in the coreboot source tree, but coreboot maintainers don't do that.

Regards,
Bin