RTEMS license issue in case of integrating commercial S/W.

[Thomas Kim]

Dear Sir,

As I know from http://www.rtems.org/license/LICENSE, RTEMS's primary RTEMS
license type is GPLv2.

I am planing to integrate commercial software with RTEMS by static linking
method.

In this case, should I open commecial software according to GPLv2 ?

Please advise me.

Best Regards.

[Sebastian Huber]

Post by Thomas Kim
Dear Sir,
As I know from http://www.rtems.org/license/LICENSE, RTEMS's primary RTEMS
license type is GPLv2.

It is not a pure GPLv2+ license. It is a GPLv2+ with an exception for static
linking:

"RTEMS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under terms
of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. RTEMS is distributed
in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a
copy of the GNU General Public License along with RTEMS; see file COPYING. If
not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

As a special exception, including RTEMS header files in a file, instantiating
RTEMS generics or templates, or linking other files with RTEMS objects to
produce an executable application, does not by itself cause the resulting
executable application to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This
exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file
might be covered by the GNU Public License."
--
Sebastian Huber, embedded brains GmbH

Address : Dornierstr. 4, D-82178 Puchheim, Germany
Phone : [phone]
Fax : [phone]
E-Mail : sebastian.huber-L1vi/***@public.gmane.org
PGP : Public key available on request.

Diese Nachricht ist keine geschäftliche Mitteilung im Sinne des EHUG.

[Joel Sherrill]

Post by Sebastian Huber

Post by Thomas Kim
Dear Sir,
As I know from http://www.rtems.org/license/LICENSE, RTEMS's primary RTEMS
license type is GPLv2.

It is not a pure GPLv2+ license. It is a GPLv2+ with an exception for static
"RTEMS is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under terms
of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation;
either version 2, or (at your option) any later version. RTEMS is distributed
in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the
implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See
the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a
copy of the GNU General Public License along with RTEMS; see file COPYING. If
not, write to the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
As a special exception, including RTEMS header files in a file, instantiating
RTEMS generics or templates, or linking other files with RTEMS objects to
produce an executable application, does not by itself cause the resulting
executable application to be covered by the GNU General Public License. This
exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why the executable file
might be covered by the GNU Public License."

To add to Sebastian's comment. This is basically the same language
used for years by GCC's run-time support files including libgcc2.

There is nothing viral about any RTEMS source code.