In message 8E8BB316C604E94AA019A54D0A5A82A2018F6899@dlee13.ent.ti.com you wrote:

I am looking at issues in moving from a proprietary diagnostics on a platform we have, to a solution using U-Boot's POST infrastructure.

I'm afraid this doesn't work.

I understand that by "proprietary" you mean non-GPL. The only explicit exception that is (and will) be allowed for U-boot is standalone applications. Such applications can use a well-defined interface to U-Boot which eports some basic services, but it is definitely not intended to allow you more extensive use of the U-Boot infrastructure. We will not allow for any kind of masqueraded linking of non-GPL code against U-Boot.

If you want to use the POST infrastructure for your own test code, please add it (under GPL, of course) to the U-Boot code. Alter- natively, you can use a standalone application, but this will not have full access to each and every function that exists in U-Boot.

I am sure many of us here have faced the condition where certain peripherals may not become open source due to legal restrictions. In the

Actually, we haven't.

First, peripherals are hardware. They cannot "become open source" because hardware does not become software. And I see no reason why even hardware which requires a strict NDA to get access to the documentation should not be supported by Free Software drivers.

case of POST support, the API set is not exported for a U-Boot standalone application to use. Writing a POST code linked within U-Boot

Correct, and we will not export any such internal APIs for standalone applications. That would undermine the whole philosophy of the GPL, as it would mean not more or less that providing a way of linking against GPL code without putting your code under GPL, too. This is not intended.

for a proprietary device may have implications of being completely linked with U-Boot and subject to GPL-v2 distribution requirements.

Indeed that will be the case. Ich you want to use the POST infra- structure or similar "internal" functions, please release your code under GPL, too.

You get so much code for free, please contribute back.

I wonder if anyone can share their experiences to what folks have done in such cases.

We have always released our code under GPL. It's that simple.

Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk