changeset 646:8c74c177e914

LICENSE: new terms
author Mychaela Falconia <falcon@freecalypso.org>
date Tue, 14 Apr 2020 20:09:37 +0000
parents b2b502339787
children 94cb5e76b3b5
files LICENSE
diffstat 1 files changed, 253 insertions(+), 36 deletions(-) [+]
line wrap: on
line diff
--- a/LICENSE	Sat Feb 15 18:06:24 2020 +0000
+++ b/LICENSE	Tue Apr 14 20:09:37 2020 +0000
@@ -1,43 +1,260 @@
+Copyright status of code
+========================
+
+Every current FreeCalypso GSM firmware offering consists of two subdivisions
+of code with different ownership:
+
+1) All FreeCalypso GSM firmware offerings are based on TCS211 and TCS3.2 GSM
+   firmware deliveries from TI.
+
+2) Every FreeCalypso GSM firmware offering also contains highly significant
+   new code developed in the context of FreeCalypso by Mother Mychaela; these
+   value-added changes and new developments which differentiate FreeCalypso
+   from TI's original are highly significant, these changes and additions are
+   what makes our FreeCalypso GSM firmwares valuable and practically usable
+   unlike the fragmented bits and pieces of TI's original code found on the
+   Internet, and we (FreeCalypso) shall vigorously pursue every available form
+   of Intellectual Property protection in defending our rightful interest in
+   these value-added new developments.
+
+All FreeCalypso GSM firmware offerings constitute Derivative Works under U.S.
+copyright law, derived from previous works that were produced and copyrighted
+by TI, but also containing highly significant original work that is deserving
+of copyright protection.
+
+The present version of this LICENSE file supercedes any previous versions that
+may have been committed into this Mercurial version control repository at any
+time in the past.  Anyone who downloads or clones code from this Mercurial
+source repository after the posting date of this LICENSE notice must agree to
+the terms of this license, even if you choose to work with an older version of
+the actual code.  If you do not agree with this license, then you have no right
+to download or use our code at all.
+
+Portions of code taken from TI
+==============================
+
+All TI-owned code that has been incorporated into FreeCalypso originates from
+the following four sources in this order of importance, from most to least
+significant:
+
+a) TCS211 firmware semi-src (partial source + objects) delivery dated
+   2007-06-08;
+
+b) TCS3.2_N5.24_M18_V1.11_M23BTH_PSL1_src.zip LoCosto firmware delivery dated
+   2009-03-27;
+
+c) Fragments of TCS211 firmware source contained in the MV100-0.1.rar Internet
+   find, dated 2004-07-02 or earlier;
+
+d) Bits of Layer1 code from the TSM30 source published by HispaPhreak in 2004,
+   dated 2003-11-06 or earlier.
+
+All of this code is presumed to be copyrighted by Texas Instruments (TI), with
+a copyright year of 2009 or earlier.
+
+Because TI no longer provides any support for their discontinued GSM baseband
+chips or for their associated firmware, the exact licensing terms for their
+code are unclear.  We (FreeCalypso) have repeatedly reached out to TI over the
+years, explaining in our letters to TI exactly what we are doing with their old
+code and asking for licensing clarification, but never received any response.
+
+In the absence of any communication from TI telling us otherwise, we operate on
+the assumption that the license terms applicable to the code we are using from
+TI are the same as customary in the semiconductor device industry as a whole.
+It is customary in the industry for makers of many complex integrated circuit
+(IC) chips to also produce specialized firmware that is required in order to
+use these chips effectively; if any given semiconductor device company X is
+primarily in the business of making and selling IC chips and provides firmware
+solely as an accessory to those chips rather than as a product in its own right,
+then the following license terms are generally customary for all such firmware
+articles throughout the industry:
+
+* Because the firmware is a required accessory for making use of the chips and
+  because the chips rather than the firmware are the revenue-generating product,
+  IC chip makers almost universally license their firmware under terms that
+  allow unlimited use of the firmware FOR AS LONG AS that firmware is used
+  together with chips bought from the company, and not otherwise.
+
+* It is generally considered severe misuse and likely copyright infringement or
+  IP theft to take some company's firmware and use it WITHOUT buying the
+  original chips for which that firmware was made.
+
+Back to FreeCalypso and TI, we (FreeCalypso) use TI's code ONLY by way of
+running it on genuine TI-made Calypso chips which we buy on various IC surplus
+markets.  Even though these chips were originally made by TI decades ago and TI
+has likely lost all institutional memory of them, the fact remains that at some
+point in the distant past these chips were legitimately sold by and bought from
+TI, with all subsequent transfers of ownership falling under the first-sale
+doctrine.  When these chips were first sold by TI decades ago, they were
+accompanied by a license for the associated firmware to be used together with
+the chips, and we make the argument that because the firmware is a required
+accessory for using the chips and has been so from the beginning, as the
+ownership of our TI-made chips passed down the chain, the license to the
+associated firmware rides along with the physical chips, following the same
+first-sale doctrine.
+
+We (FreeCalypso) absolutely do not condone or encourage anyone to use TI's
+firmware without TI-made chips, and we never engage in any such misuse
+ourselves.  Anyone who attempts to port TI's firmware to some non-TI chipset
+platform or otherwise use it without TI-made chips will very likely be
+infringing on TI's copyright, as TI had developed the firmware solely for use
+together with their chips, and use without TI-made chips would constitute theft
+of their work.  We shall not provide any assistance whatsoever to anyone
+seeking to port the present firmware to a non-TI chipset or to an SDR setup or
+any other arrangement that is not firmly cemented around TI-made Calypso chips,
+as doing so would almost certainly go against TI's reasonable rights.
+
+Because we use TI's code only by way of running it on genuine TI-made Calypso
+chips, in the absence of TI telling us otherwise, we have every good reason to
+believe that our manner of using TI's firmware code is fully consistent with
+TI's original intent in the way it was developed and licensed, and is therefore
+fully lawful and not infringing in any way.
+
 FreeCalypso original work
 =========================
 
-The present FreeCalypso firmware is a derived work based on TI's TCS211 and
-TCS3.2 firmwares.  However, even though it is based on these two starting points
-from TI, our FreeCalypso fw is a software product in its own right, and is NOT
-merely a "hacked" copy of some TI firmware.  The particular way in which we have
-combined and integrated pieces from TCS211 and from TCS3.2 to produce our
-TCS2/TCS3 hybrid, our meticulous source reconstruction of TCS211 L1 that
-originally came in binary object form, our completely new and original firmware
-configuration and build system, all of our new code that supports new board-
-level hardware targets that use TI chips but aren't TI's historical development
-boards, and all other significant new developments made in FreeCalypso
-constitute our own original work.
+All code we got from TI dates from 2009 or earlier; absolutely no activity by
+any party took place between 2009 and 2013, and all new development from 2013
+onward is original to FreeCalypso.  All changes and additions to TI's code base
+that have been made within the context of FreeCalypso from 2013 to the present
+are the work of Mother Mychaela Nadezhda Falconia and are copyrighted as such:
+
+Copyright (C) Mychaela N. Falconia, 2013-2020, All rights reserved
+
+Changes and additions falling under Falconia copyright include all of the
+following:
+
+* The novel and innovative way in which components from TI's TCS211 and TCS3.2
+  firmwares have been stitched together in order to produce our signature
+  TCS2/TCS3 hybrid (resulting in firmware that runs on Calypso rather than
+  LoCosto, yet at the same time is fully recompilable from source) is hereby
+  claimed to be sufficiently creative and original to be deserving of copyright
+  protection in the 17 USC 101 definition of a "compilation".
+
+* All instances of translation from disassembly to C (producing recompilable C
+  code that replaces components which were previously available only as linkable
+  binary objects) are Mother Mychaela's creative work falling under Falconia
+  copyright.  This category critically includes the tpudrv12.c time-based RF
+  driver and the OSL and OSX components of GPF.
+
+* All changes for compiling with a GNU gcc+binutils toolchain instead of TI's
+  TMS470 compiler, included in FC Citrine, FC Selenite and future FC firmwares.
+  These changes include newly written assembly code and linker scripts.
+
+* All FreeCalypso firmware configuration and build systems are original to
+  Falconia and do not originate from TI at all.  This category includes the
+  Makefile hierarchy and Bourne shell code in FC Citrine, the Bourne shell-based
+  Makefile generation system of FC Magnetite, and all future FC firmware
+  configuration and build systems based on these two.
 
-All original work in FreeCalypso that is not directly traceable to some
-historical TI code component has been written by Mother Mychaela Nadezhda
-Falconia, and I refuse to claim copyright on this software work.  I hereby
-immediately place this work in the public domain; it may be used, copied,
-distorted or destroyed in any manner whatsoever without further attribution
-or notice to the creator.
+* All conditional compilation changes that make it possible to build our
+  firmwares for various Calypso targets, both new and historical, that are not
+  Openmoko GTA01 or GTA02 modems.
+
+* The quite-different-from-TI FFS configuration in FC Citrine, including the
+  FFS-in-RAM trick that is original to FreeCalypso.
+
+* All support for newer (post-TI) flash chips in FC Magnetite, FC Selenite and
+  all future FC firmwares based on the Magnetite/Selenite line.
+
+* The mechanism for passing AT commands and responses over the RVTMUX interface
+  is novel and original to FreeCalypso, likewise falling under Falconia
+  copyright.
+
+* FreeCalypso-added AT@VPATH and AT@VSEL mechanisms for using the Calypso chip's
+  MCSI digital voice interface for purposes other than just Bluetooth.
+
+* All other changes and additions to TI's code base that have been implemented
+  in FreeCalypso since 2013 and through the present.
+
+License terms
+=============
+
+For all FreeCalypso GSM firmware offerings that contain Falconia-copyrighted
+code and other changes and additions that fall under Falconia copyright, the
+following three (3) modes of usage are allowed without requiring any license
+fee payment:
+
+1) Using FreeCalypso GSM firmware on Falconia-made FreeCalypso hardware: those
+   who purchase FreeCalypso hardware products (board-level hardware) from
+   Falconia Partners LLC, as well as any downstream possessors of these physical
+   products under the first-sale doctrine, are hereby given a license to use all
+   of our FreeCalypso firmware versions *on that Falconia-made hardware* for any
+   purpose whatsoever, without restrictions on commercial usage, including the
+   right to make any arbitrary modifications of your choosing to our code base,
+   for as long as our firmware or any derivative works based on our firmware are
+   used ONLY on Falconia-made hardware units.
 
-Code pieces from TI
-===================
+2) End user usage: in the case of those firmware configurations for which
+   official binary end user releases are provided, downloading prebuilt
+   official binary firmware images from freecalypso.org and installing them on
+   the hardware they are intended for, including hardware models produced by
+   manufacturers other than Falconia, is always permitted without any further
+   conditions or restrictions.  Please note that this permission applies ONLY
+   to official FreeCalypso firmware releases; if you make any changes of your
+   own to our firmware, then this permission no longer applies - instead you
+   would need to qualify under one of the other two permissions.
+
+3) Non-commercial hobbyist tinkerer usage: personal hobbyists, tinkerers and
+   enthusiasts are allowed and encouraged to play with our firmware as much as
+   they like, including running the firmware on whatever hardware you like and
+   making whatever modifications you like, as long as your usage is strictly
+   non-commercial.  Users in this category are considered to be peers and equal
+   colleagues to the Mother, and will be given the warmest welcome in the
+   FreeCalypso community.  Any TI lorekeepers are included in this category and
+   are most especially welcome.
+
+Restrictions on commercial usage
+================================
+
+There is one specific form of usage which is expressly prohibited without
+payment of a license fee: namely, for-profit commercial usage of FreeCalypso
+GSM firmware on non-Falconia-made hardware that does not fit under end user
+usage permission as defined above.  Anyone who creates a derivative work based
+on FreeCalypso GSM fw, modified in ways which are not endorsed or approved of
+in any way by the Mother, and then uses that FreeCalypso-based derivative work
+as part of a purely commercial for-profit venture or enterprise must either buy
+FreeCalypso hardware from Falconia Partners LLC and limit their commercial use
+of FreeCalypso-based derivative works to just that Falconia-made hardware, or
+buy a commercial license (for a to-be-negotiated price depending on the exact
+nature of your commercial usage) from copyright holder Mychaela N. Falconia,
+allowing commercial use on non-Falconia-made hardware.  Doing otherwise
+constitutes severe infringement on Mother Mychaela's copyright.
 
-In the case of those code components which originate from TI, we did not get
-them *from* TI per se, instead we have found them freely on the Internet.  I,
-Mother Mychaela, have made multiple attempts to reach out to TI, informing them
-about the existence of our FreeCalypso family of projects and what I am doing
-with their old abandoned software IP.  I was not able to get any positive
-response from them in the form of support or help with obtaining those pieces
-of historical code and documentation which are still missing, but they have not
-taken any adverse action against us either; specifically, they never said
-explicitly that they object to what I am doing (producing and freely
-distributing my own Derived Works based on their abandonware IP), and they
-never asked me to stop doing so.
+No part of Mother Mychaela's FreeCalypso family of projects has *ever* been
+intended to serve as a free giveaway or handout of tools or software components
+or any other materials to for-profit commercial entities, instead the ONLY
+parties to whom I (copyright holder Mychaela N. Falconia) grant permission to
+use my software and firmware on a "gift" basis (not requiring purchase of my
+hardware or a license fee payment in lieu thereof) are personal hobbyist
+tinkerers and end users as defined in the previous section.  It is my natural
+right as the author of a highly creative work of many years to decide who gets
+to use it for free and who does not, and in my capacity as the rightful
+copyright holder I deem it so that if you use my work as part of any commercial
+for-profit venture or enterprise that does not provide any value or benefit
+whatsoever to what _I_ define as the FreeCalypso community, then I am legally
+entitled in my capacity as the copyright holder to require payment for such
+peculiar use of my creative work.
+
+Redistribution and derivative works
+===================================
 
-Based on the fact that TI have chosen to not take any action against our family
-of projects despite being fully informed and having been given multiple
-opportunities to do so over the course of many years, we hereby make the
-reasonable conclusion that TI do not object to us using their fully abandoned
-and discontinued IP as if it were Free Software, and I, Mother Mychaela, shall
-continue doing the same for as long as I am alive and physically able.
+For as long as I (Mother Mychaela) am alive, for as long as I contunue to
+actively serve in my current position as the Mother of FreeCalypso, and for as
+long as the official FreeCalypso source code repositories at freecalypso.org
+remain up and publicly serving, reposting or redistribution of FreeCalypso GSM
+firmware source code via any other Internet sites is NOT permitted.  Unaltered
+official binary firmware release images downloaded from freecalypso.org may be
+freely redistributed in any medium without restrictions.
+
+As far as derivative works go, the only parties who may legally produce such
+derivative works under the terms of the present license without payment of a
+commercial license fee are either non-commercial personal hobbyist tinkerers or
+lawful owners of Falconia-made FreeCalypso hardware devices.  If you have made
+some modifications of your own to FreeCalypso GSM firmware and have done so on
+a strictly non-commercial basis, i.e., NOT in connection with any kind of
+for-profit venture or enterprise, and you would like to share your modified
+version with other non-commercial hobbyists, enthusiasts or tinkerers, then I
+am very much open to such sharing, but you MUST contact me first to work out
+the details.  This contact requirement is unfortunately necessary in order to
+deter predatory and exploitative for-profit commercial misuses of the work.