Ulf Samuelsson wrote:
----- Original Message ----- From: "Timur Tabi" timur@freescale.com To: "Wolfgang Denk" wd@denx.de Cc: u-boot-users@lists.sourceforge.net; "Jeff Mann" MannJ@embeddedplanet.com Sent: Thursday, April 26, 2007 10:09 PM Subject: Re: [U-Boot-Users] Proposal for a make option to include an additional stand alone program directory
Wolfgang Denk wrote:
You cannot link non-GPL code into U-Boot.
What if I use mkimage to merge u-boot.bin with proprietaryfirmware.bin?
If that doesn't work, what if I burn u-boot.bin into flash at some location, and then burn proprietaryfirmware.bin into flash at another location, and then I create an an image file by copying all of flash?
It depends on how you define linking. I would say that taking two binaries, one from GPL code and one from non-GPL code, and just merging them into another binary, that cannot be a GPL violation.
If combining U-Boot with the switch binary results in that you can tftp from any of the 5 ports , and this is not possible without combining with the binary, then you are most likely violating the GPL.
I think there's a lot of misunderstanding going on here, and it's probably my fault for not being clear. The non-GPL firmware is not run on the host processor. It is loaded into the memory of an on-board device.
What I was considering is making a change to the build process so that when the user built u-boot.bin, if the firmware binary were present, it would merge that into the u-boot.bin binary, for convenience.
If your version of u-boot has any knowledge about program locations within the closed binary, or vice versa, then you are most likely violating the GPL.
The binary is not being executed by U-Boot, it is being copied into device memory by U-Boot via a loader application. If the loader application is GPL, then I don't see how this is a GPL violation. However, if the loader is not GPL, then I'm not sure.