[Buildroot] libftdi1 licenses

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 29/05/2019 10:50, Thomas Huth wrote:
> Am Wed, 29 May 2019 09:40:52 +0200
> schrieb Yegor Yefremov <yegorslists at googlemail.com>:
> 
>> FOSSology scan reveals that src/ftdi_stream.c contains MIT license.

 Hard to be sure... It is "adapted from" a MIT-licensed file. If the original
author has agreed, it may just have been relicensed to LGPL-2.1.

 So, as Thomas suggests: better ask upstream.

>>
>> Some CMake scripts are licensed under LGPL 2.1
>> (cmake/UseLibFTDI1.cmake). Should this also be mentioned?

 No, we don't take into account the files used during build, only what ends up
on the target. Well, give or take :-). Otherwise, every autotools package would
also have to mention GPL for config.guess and config.sub (and usually more).


> It's obviously not only the cmake files that contain LGPL 2.1 code, but
> also some .c files:
> 
> $ grep -r Lesser */*.c
> src/ftdi.c: *   it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License           *
> src/ftdi_stream.c: *   it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License           *

 In fact, it looks like it is *all* licensed under LGPL-2.1 now. The COPYING.LIB
file, however, has not been updated...


> ... so IMHO yes, this should be mentioned.
> 
> Even better: Get in touch with the libfdtdi1 folks and ask them to fix
> their license information (i.e. either use "Library GPL" in the .c
> files or update the LICENSE and COPYING.LIB files to "Lesser GPL").

 +1 to that.

 There's another bug in Buildroot's license info: the GPL exception for ftdipp1
is not mentioned.

 Regards,
 Arnout