eCosPro Software Licenses Compliance Guide

This guide provides a set of guidelines to follow when releasing products that incorporate software from an eCosPro release. It does not claim to be authoritative, it is still your responsibility to read, understand and comply with the various licenses that apply to different portions of the runtime source code.

The eCosPro Distribution Software Licenses Agreement contains the full text of all the licenses that apply to the software incorporated within an eCosPro Distribution. Examples of eCosPro Distributions include all eCosPro Developer's Kits and eCosPro Starter Kits provided by eCosCentric.

A summary of your responsibilities for each license is as follows:

eCosPro License

The eCosPro License applies to elements of eCosCentric's intellectual property within a distribution. Depending on the particular release this may cover various files within the HAL, device drivers, and other components. All these files are clearly marked with a reference to the eCosPro license in their headers. A key requirement of the license is that although binary and object code versions of eCosPro licensed source files may be freely copied, the source files themselves must not be redistributed.

• When you make any eCos source code publicly available you MUST ensure that it contains NO eCosPro licensed source files.
• Although not specifically an eCosPro license issue, you MUST also ensure that you do not redistribute any eCosCentric proprietary applications or information. This includes eCosPro installers and your licensee file.

eCos Public License

The bulk of the eCos sources are covered by the eCos Public License (EPL). This license is a combination of the GNU General Public License (GPL) with an exception clause. The exception allows non-GPL licensed software to be linked with the eCos sources without requiring the sources of the non-GPL'd software to be also licensed under the GPL. This means that your application, third party middleware, isolated additions that you have made to eCos, and other alternatively licensed sources do not have to be made publicly available. Note that if your modifications to eCos are derived from EPL licensed sources, or are integrated into an EPL licensed file, then they too must be licensed under the EPL and made public. If your modifications are isolated into a separate set of source files that contain no code derived from open source licensed code, then you may choose to license them as you wish.

• You must give notice that portions of the software incorporated in the device is covered by the GPL. This should be included in the documentation or other descriptive material distributed with the device. It is also considered good practice to included a printed copy of the GPL.
• You must either include a copy of the GPL (EPL) licensed source files with your device (for example on a driver or documentation CD), or a written offer to supply a copy of the source files upon request. If you include and ship the sources with the product then you are not obliged to offer the sources by any other means.
• In the case of a written offer, you may supply the sources via an FTP or web site, but you must be prepared to provide a copy on physical media if so requested. You may charge a reasonable fee to cover the costs of providing the software on physical media. The offer to supply the sources should be valid for three years.

• A machine readable copy of the GPL license is included with the sources
• That any "scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable" are included with the sources. This should include any makefiles and eCos configuration files.
• If you have modified any of the source code files, prominent notices should be included in each file stating that you changed the file, and the date of the change
• For each version of the code/firmware for your device that is released to the public, you should ensure that you make available a corresponding version of the EPL licensed source code

Modified BSD Licenses

The FreeBSD network stack, lwIP network stack, related networking software, and other minor portions of the software included in eCosPro releases are covered by modified BSD licenses. If your application does not include any of this functionality then this section does not apply to you. There are two main variants of the BSD license, the "4-clause BSD", and the "3-clause BSD". The 4-clause BSD variant is the original version of the license that was released by UC Berkeley. It requires that "All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software must display the following acknowledgement: This product includes software developed by the University of California, Berkeley and its contributors". This advertising requirement was subsequently rescinded by UC Berkely in 1999, creating the newer 3-clause BSD variant. In the meantime various software authors had adopted the 4-clause BSD license, retaining the advertising clause, and modifying the license to refer to the author instead of UC Berkeley.

• If your product makes use of a particular eCosPro feature identified in the table below, and your advertising materials specifically mentions the feature, then you will need to acknowledge the software author(s) contribution in those advertising materials: "This product includes software developed by <Author(s)>".

• Both 3-clause and 4-clause BSD variants require that the product documentation and/or other descriptive material shipped with the product reproduces the text of the BSD license, including its disclaimer and copyright holders. If your product uses any eCosPro feature identified below then you must ensure that it's authors copyright text is included.

ZLIB License

eCos Contributions

Further information and resources

• The eCos License Overview on the eCos community website
• GNU GPL version 2 FAQ (the EPL is based on version 2 of the GPL)
• The GPL Compliance Lab
• GPL product vendor FAQ
• Wikipedia entry for the BSD License