In message 37FB7AA6F5F9814FB634A7BF4C35A6F501214125@ESEALNT442.al.sw.ericsson.se you wrote:
we have some troubles with one of our 3rd party suppliers. We are using U-boot and would like to run some of the 3rd party code from U-boot. Could -->
Actually, I don't see where the problem is. If they are your suppliers, you can tell them what you want. Tell them you want to have their code licensed under GPL, and the world is a happier place ;-)
5.12. U-Boot Standalone Applications U-Boot allows to dynamically load and run "standalone" applications, which can use some resources of U-Boot like console I/O functions, memory allocation or interrupt services. be used to avoid GPL???
Not to avoid GPL. You don't want to avoid GPL, you want to appreciate it, because without GPL you wouldn;t be running U-Boot, nor Linux, nor GCC, nor many other of the Free Software tools you are used to use.
But yes, as you can implement standalone programs such that they don't make use of any internal of the U-Boot implementation and just use the "officially" exported system call interface, it is possible to write standalone applications which can be distributed under a different license, which may be not compatible with the GPL. Although I don;t encourage such use, it is acceptable from the legal point of view.
Best regards,
Wolfgang Denk