On Wed 18 Jun, Chris Gilbert wrote:
> 
> I'm just curious to know if any of the recent copyright issues that have
> been going around on current-user effect the arm32 port, I know at
> present they don't but could they effect any future riscbsd binaries and
> source.

I have read all of this myself, and I am worried too.

> For those that don't know the effect (IMO) is that Chris G Demetriou has
> decided on to use a new licence in the top of their source files.  The
> effect is (following the letter of the licence, from what ppl have said,
> although the idea is to protect cgd from people violating the licence) 
> that any mention of NetBSD (that includes a file by cgd) also has to
> include:
> 
> This product includes software developed by
> Christopher G. Demetriou for the NetBSD Project.
> 
> This appears to be the way people reading current-users understand it.
> I'm not too sure on this as I've not followed closely enough.

At least some people, others think that this is not the case.

> The worry this causes me is what happens with the deals causality have,
> would a company purchasing a riscbsd based product want to continually
> mention:
> This product includes software developed by
> Christopher G. Demetriou for the NetBSD Project.

I think you are missing the point here. The company purchasing a
RiscBSD based product does not have to mention this unless they
market it or talk about it.
But, Causality would have to include it if we take the license to
the letter as people on current-users have.

> This is a worry to me as I've happily enjoyed using riscbsd over the
> past year or more (and have contributed a few bits)  but the problem it
> causes me is that I don't want to have to mention:
> 
> This product includes software developed by
> Christopher G. Demetriou for the NetBSD Project.
> 
> At every mention of riscbsd, in every media.

I agree with you there.

> Perhaps my interpreation is wrong I've only read the licence once, but
> it appears to indicate this.

It sure does.

> What do I do to avoid this?  Stop using current and revert to 1.2.1
> source and compile only the new gnu stuff?  change to Armlinux?

Check the source tree and remove all CDG code with this license.

> NB I'm not sure if this has a direct effect on riscbsd yet, however I
> can see that it might in the near future.  It may even effect the use of
> netbsd on the digital NC's (although that's something I can't comment
> on)

Yes, it might. As far as I know, Chris has been working with the
underlying base code in NetBSD, and more and more code are changed
to be more MI with time, so that means that CGD code may be used
on more platforms.

> I understand that the people writing for netbsd should be given a bit
> more credit, but for a license to imply at every mention seems extreme.

As far as I have seen the letter of the license is more extreme than
the intent.
Also, the worry is not about the current practice, but what will happen
in the future.

> Chris
> 
> PS my aim is not to worry anyone but I'd rather find out other peoples
> opinion on this.  I may have been mis-led by all the posts.

I appreciate that, and I don't think that you have been mislead by
the posts.

But, I am not sure that this is a topic for this list. There has been
mentioned the setting up of a different mailing list that will
cover this topic in the near future.

I believe that we should stop here and that people who want to discuss
this further take it in a different forum.

I would also recommend all who are interested to grab the current-users
archive for the last couple of days. I believe that this started around
10 June.

Kjetil B.