eCosPro Software Licenses Compliance Guide

eCosPro

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 Non-Commercial Public License

The eCosPro Non-Commercial Public License applies to elements of eCosCentric's intellectual property within a distribution and permits free non-commercial use only of these elements. This license cover various files within the HAL, device drivers, and other components, all of which are clearly marked with a reference to the eCosPro Non-Commercial Public license in their headers.

For further clarification of non-commercial use, refer to the Defintions section of the license and its Example Usage appendix.

When distributing code, or its derivatives, (in any format) under this license, including any hardware or device containing the code or its derivatives, you MUST:

eCosPro License

The eCosPro License removes all of the requirements of the eCosPro Non-Commercial Public License, permitting distribution of binary and object code deriatives without restriction and allowing commercial use of the software. A commercial eCosPro Distribution also includes files within the HAL, device drivers, and other components which are clearly marked with a reference to the eCosPro License in their headers. While binary and object code derivatives of these files may be freely copied, these source files themselves must not be redistributed.

eCosPro Evaluation License

This license is defunct as it has been superceeded by the eCosPro Non-Commercial Public License. However, if you do still have code provided under the terms of this license, your evaluation period has been exceeded and you are required to discontinue any further use or evaluation of the Evaluation Software, and its derivatives, in accordance with the terms of the license.

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.

When making EPL sources available you should ensure:

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 (“4-clause”), and the 2 or 3 clause BSD (“3-clause”). 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.

BSD advertising clause related Features & Authors
FeatureCDL package identifierAuthors
FreeBSD network stackCYGPKG_NET_FREEBSD_STACKNetBSD Foundation, Inc. and its contributors,
Niklas Hallqvist
PPP (Both BSD and lwIP stack versions)CYGPKG_PPPCarnegie Mellon University and Australian National University
CYGPKG_PPP_CHAPGregory M. Christy
BSD Bridge supportCYGPKG_NET_BRIDGEJason L. Wright
BSD Random IP packet identifiersCYGSEM_NET_RANDOMIDNiels Provos
OpenBSD network stack (deprecated) CYGPKG_NET_OPENBSD_STACK Information Technology Division, US Naval Research Laboratory

BSD licensed source code Features & Copyright Holders
FeatureCDL package identifierAuthor's Copyright text
FreeBSD network stack CYGPKG_NET_FREEBSD_STACK Copyright (c) 1980, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 The Regents of the University of California.
(c) UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001 WIDE Project.
Copyright (c) 2000 Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>
Copyright (c) 1998, Larry Lile
Copyright (c) 1988, 1989 Stephen Deering
Copyright (c) 1998 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1993 Daniel Boulet
Copyright (c) 1994 Ugen J.S.Antsilevich
Copyright (c) 1997 Niklas Hallqvist
Copyright (c) 2000 Paycounter, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1998, David Greenman.
Copyright (c) 1996 Matt Thomas <matt@3am-software.com>
Copyright 1998 Niels Provos <provos@citi.umich.edu>
Copyright 1994, 1995 Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Copyright (c) 1996 Alex Nash
BSD IPsec support CYGPKG_NET_IPSEC_LIBIPSEC Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, and 1999 WIDE Project
BSD PPP support CYGPKG_PPP Copyright (c) 1993, 1994, 1995 The Australian National University
Copyright (c) 1989 Carnegie Mellon University
Copyright (c) 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California
Copyright (c) 1995 Eric Rosenquist, Strata Software Limited
Copyright (c) 1991 Gregory M. Christy
Copyright (c) 1995 Pedro Roque Marques
OpenBSD network stack (deprecated) CYGPKG_NET_OPENBSD_STACK Copyright (c) 1980, 1982, 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994 The Regents of the University of California
(c) UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1999, 2000 Jason L. Wright (jason@thought.net)
Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 1999 WIDE Project
Copyright (c) 1996 Charles D. Cranor and Washington University
Copyright (c) 1988 Stephen Deering
Copyright (C) 1997-1998 by Darren Reed & Guido Van Rooij
Copyright 1997 Niels Provos <provos@physnet.uni-hamburg.de>
Copyright 1998 Niels Provos <provos@citi.umich.edu>
Copyright (C) 1993-1998 by Darren Reed
Copyright (c) 1997 Niklas Hallqvist
Copyright (c) 1996 Theo de Raadt
Copyright 1995-1998 by Randall Atkinson, Ronald Lee, Daniel McDonald, Bao Phan, and Chris Winters. All rights under this copyright have been assigned to the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL)
FreeBSD and OpenBSD network stacks CYGPKG_NET Copyright (c) 1983, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1991, 1993 The Regents of the University of California
Copyright (c) 1997 The NetBSD Foundation, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1999 Theo de Raadt
Copyright (c) 1994 Jason R. Thorpe
Copyright (c) 1995, 1999 Berkeley Software Design, Inc.
Copyright (c) 1999, 2000 Jason L. Wright (jason@thought.net)
lwIP network stack CYGPKG_NET_LWIP Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Swedish Institute of Computer Science
Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Leon Woestenberg <leon.woestenberg@axon.tv>
Copyright (c) 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 Axon Digital Design B.V., The Netherlands.
lwIP PPP support CYCPKG_LWIP_PPP Copyright (c) 2003 by Marc Boucher, Services Informatiques (MBSI) inc.
Copyright (c) 1997, 1998 by Global Election Systems Inc.
Copyright (c) 1993, 1994 The Australian National University
Copyright (c) 1989 Carnegie Mellon University
Copyright (c) 1991 Gregory M. Christy
Copyright (c) 1995 Eric Rosenquist, Strata Software Limited
Copyright (c) 1989 Regents of the University of California
RedBoot CYGSEM_REDBOOT_NET_TFTP_DOWNLOAD Copyright (c) 1983 Regents of the University of California
RedBoot CYGSEM_REDBOOT_ELF Copyright (c) 1995, 1996 Erik Theisen
File Systems CYGPKG_COMPAT_LINUX Copyright 2002 Niels Provos <provos@citi.umich.edu>
Posix Compatibility Layer CYGPKG_POSIX Copyright (c) 1990, 1999 The Regents of the University of California
MIPS HAL CYGPKG_HAL_MIPS Copyright (c) 1992 The Regents of the University of California
Standard C Library CYGPKG_LIBC_STDIO Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California
Standard C Library CYGPKG_LIBC_STDLIB Copyright (c) 1990, 1992, 1993 The Regents of the University of California
Standard C Library CYGPKG_LIBC_STRING Copyright (c) 1988 Regents of the University of California
Standard C Library CYGPKG_LIBC_TIME Copyright (c) 1999 Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden)
Object Loader CYGPKG_LOADER Copyright (c) 1995, 1996 Erik Theisen

Note: The above list of copyright holders and the associated packages containing their software has been provided as a guide and indicator only. This list may change over time. It is your sole responsibility to determine the authors and type of acknowledgement required when releasing products incorporating software provided under the terms of a BSD license.

ZLIB License

The zlib compression library included in eCos is licensed under the zlib license. The license is very permissive and does not require acknowledgement of its use, nor distribution of its sources.

eCos Contributions

It is not a license requirement, but it is considered good practice to assign and contribute back to the eCos project any generically useful modifications and additions that you have made to the eCos source files. This allows others to benefit from your modifications in the same way that you have benefited from all the previous contributions to the eCos project.

Further information and resources