On Tue, Jan 27, 2004 at 09:38:11PM +0100, Wouter van Ooijen wrote:
> Today someone ordered a 16F877 with WLoader from me. I grabbed for an
> empty 16F877 and found the (last) tube empty. But I have plenty of
> 16F877A's so I bit the bullet and adapted WLoader for the 16F87XA chips.
> This has been requested by a lot of people so I thought I'd better let
> it be known. The result be on my websiet in the next few days (It needs
> an update of XWisp too), but if anyone wants a preliminary version I can
> email it.

Cool. Question: has the protocol changed in such a way that Woj Zabolotny's
linwload would fail? Or is XWisp written in Python?

>
> Note: I currently use GPL for this software. My intention is that it is
> free for all, except that I don't ever want to pay for a derived
> version.

Excellent.

> I still have not found the right license.

Actually this is a different matter than the JAL libraries, which are
admittedly problematic.

> After thinking again
> I am not even sure of how some terms of the common software licenses
> should be interpreted when applied to embedded stuff. The term
> 'combined' is critical.

Below I'll use your combined as a definition to mean "to create a derived
work in such a way that the works are subject to the same license, specifically
the GPL."

An aggregate is defined components that are proximally located close to one
another, but have no interactions that can be construed as being combined.

>
> - is a bootloader 'combined' with its application?

No. They are aggregates. It's like saying that since Windows loads GPL
applications, that Windows (or at least its loader) must be GPL.

> - is firmware combined with the chip it is programmed into?

Irrelevant by the above definition since only one component is software.

> - is firmware combined with the (design of) the surrounding electronics?

Irrelevant by the above definition since only one component is software.

> - is firmware in one chip combined with firmware in surrounding chips?

No. Since they are on different chips, they do not share the same codespace.
It's probably not even an aggregate.

>
> Stallman once said that he was not interested in freeing embedded
> software or electronic designs because those things were not technically
> cheap (free in the 'other' meaning) to copy. A pity.

It's irratating, but it shows the problems of combining free and non free
software. And you have exactly the right reason for wanting your software to
be free.

But there are no worries here. Make Wloader GPL and be done with it.

Just to give you something to think about though in terms of synergy. Brad
Parker has taken over development of my NPCI compiler/interpreter system
and has made some progress in the last few weeks. A bootloader would be a
good complement to the interpreter because it would facilitate loading new
bytecode programs for the interpreter to run. Now the interesting question
is how to license the interpreter so that it meets similar requirements to
the JAL libraries: freely distributable, mods to the interpreter itself
must be free too but applications that the interpreter runs are not subject
to license. Then it gets more complicated because the interpreter can be
augmented with user written modules that applications can call. And it's
all sitting on a chip in the same memory space as the bootloader.

Fun, fun, fun!

BAJ

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