Dear Wolfgang,
On 2009-07-27, at 09:35, Wolfgang Denk wrote:
I somehow had developed the impression thatthe API code was intended to be some "next generation" implementation for standalone programs, with one of the primary purposes being the implementation of (potentially closed source) bootstrap loader code for FreeBSD.
Yes, the API was meant to be generic and extensible mechanism for modern standalone applications, to replace the legacy jumptable mechanism at some point. The FreeBSD loader(8) was a successful test bed for it, so I surely recommend using the API :-)
But now I realize that the API code is actually linking against parts of the U-Boot code, so any code based on the U-Bott API must in- herently be GPLed.
The demo application provided in the U-Boot source tree (examples/api) indeed re-uses some parts of the U-Boot code (to avoid code duplication), but in general this is not a requirement. The FreeBSD loader(8) is self-contained and does not include any U-Boot code, it just calls the API.
kind regards, Rafal