Re: Please advice w.r.t. language/tcl

[Jonathan Larmour <jifl at eCosCentric dot com>]

Øyvind Harboe wrote:
> Jim Tcl contains an eCos repository in CVS HEAD.
>
>
> http://cvs.berlios.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/jim/jim/ecos/
>
> The latest athttpd uses the Jim Tcl eCos repository.
>
> I don't know what the copyright assignment status is, but I'm pretty
> sure this, like jffs2(?), will be a case of where eCos can't get
> all the assignments in place.
>
> http://jim.berlios.de/license.html

Oh dear, I think we've dropped the ball here a bit. Please see 
http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/#apache2
The comment at jim.berlios.de/license.html about compatibility with GPL is 
evidently not the full story.

We are using GPLv2, and moving to GPLv3 presents problems for us.

This situation is a problem and would imply we should remove the JIM TCL 
support. We do not include software incompatible with the GPL in eCos, and 
for obvious reasons - it prevents anyone using fully GPL'd software. As a 
free software project that is something we should not be discouraging... 
quite the opposite.

Obviously I want to avoid removing Jim. Øyvind, if you already have a 
relationship with the developers, is there any chance of a dual license?

> http://cvs.berlios.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/jim/jim/ChangeLog?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain
>
>
> What's the best way forward here?

The policy has been before that (assuming a compatible licence!) we will 
tolerate stuff from existing established open source projects, and as long 
as they are self-contained. Apart from the licence issue above, Jim would 
fit that. But any changes to Jim to port to eCos should be assigned to the 
FSF as they are specific to eCos - the rationale being the same as for 
assignments in general.

Which reminds me Øyvind, where have things got to in your assignment 
process? I believe you started on it a while back, so if there's anything 
you want me to chase with the FSF, let me know and I can do some prodding. 
You can mail me off-list if so.

Jifl
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