Licensing of new Bluetooth stack

[Karim Yaghmour]

[Not sure if this the proper forum. If not, please let me know where
this should be posted.]

I've been reading through the IMPORTANT_LICENSE file in
[aosp-4.2]/external/bluetooth/bluedroid/ and I'm not sure I fully
understand what's meant by it. Part of my confusion is that I can't
remember running across anything similar elsewhere in the AOSP. Here's
the relevant snippet:
> This license applies to all underlying Broadcom proprietary code and all
> changes thereto committed to the AOSP on or before the
> commit f80d3d045eab5f002be4b5e8a3d2d376fdf7581a ("Proprietary Files").
...
> These Proprietary Files are the proprietary software of Broadcom
Corporation
> and/or its licensors, and may only be duplicated or distributed (through
> multiple tiers) for internal evaluation purposes ("Authorized
License"). Any
> commercial redistribution of the Proprietary Files is strictly prohibited.

Is there anything in this (or other language in the file) that precludes
anyone from hosting an AOSP mirror or a derivative thereof? And/or does
anyone need any special permission Broadcom to host
external/bluetooth/bluedroid/?

Any insight/guidance from anyone involved in the AOSP on this matter
would be greatly appreciated.

--
Karim Yaghmour
CEO - Opersys inc. / www.opersys.com
http://twitter.com/karimyaghmour

[Karim Yaghmour]

typo ...

On 12-11-16 03:12 PM, Karim Yaghmour wrote:
> anyone need any special permission Broadcom to host
> external/bluetooth/bluedroid/?

... special permission **from** Broadcom ...

[Matthew Xie]

As you know Bluedroid was contributed by Broadcom and is released under Apache License v2 in the Android 4.2 release.  

As we worked with Broadcom, the initial code checkins were based on a proprietary Broadcom license. The sources were eventually released under Apache License v2. 

** The IMPORTANT_LICENSE file states that sources in the Android aosp tree Prior to the commit in the text file has a Broadcom proprietary license file. Bluedroid sources prior to the commit in the aosp tree requires permission from Broadcom.

** The release version of Bluedroid including the Bluedroid sources After the commit in the text file has the Apache License v2 - this can be distributed in your Android distribution under the Apache License terms.

On Tuesday, November 20, 2012 11:56:15 AM UTC-8, Matt Gumbel wrote:

Bump. We're very interested in getting some clarification on the redistributability of bluedroid.

-Matt

Intel Open Source Technology Center

[Matt Gumbel]

Matthew-

Thanks, but that doesn't clear up the question for me. People expect to be able to redistribute the android sources, including bluedroid. In their git form. That necessarily includes the old commit history which contains supposedly proprietary licensed code.

How can the various open source Android distributions redistribute bluedroid when some of the code in the git repository is proprietary to Broadcom? (Obviously we could squash out all of the old history, that would be highly undesirable for obvious reasons).

thanks,

Matt

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

The case of downloading and redistributing the whole git history is
exactly the situation that the IMPORTANT_LICENSE file is meant to
cover.

JBQ

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "android-platform" group.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/android-platform/-/C5Kd7ldaqUsJ.
>
> To post to this group, send email to android-...@googlegroups.com.
> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
> android-platfo...@googlegroups.com.
> For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/android-platform?hl=en.



--
Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru
Technical Lead, Android Open Source Project, Google.

Questions sent directly to me that have no reason for being private
will likely get ignored or forwarded to a public forum with no further
warning.

[Matt Gumbel]

Thanks Guru & JBQ for your replies.

I sincerely apologize, but even with your clarifying answers, I still don't know if I can redistribute the bluedroid git repo (including all git history) or not.

Note that my question is about _redistributability_ and not usage. Guru, you say that "Bluedroid sources prior to the commit in the aosp tree requires special permission from Broadcom." Are you saying that I need special permission from Broadcom simply to redistribute the old commits (as part of the git history)? Or is that special permission only required if I want to build and use the old commits in a product?

To phrase my question as simply as possible: Can I throw a clone of the bluedroid git repo up on my public server and still comply with the letter and spirit of this special license?

thanks,

Matt

Intel Open Source Technology Center

On Tuesday, November 20, 2012 1:37:41 PM UTC-8, Guru Nagarajan wrote:

 As you know Bluedroid was contributed by Broadcom and is released under Apache License v2 in the Android 4.2 release.  

As we worked with Broadcom, the initial code checkins were based on a proprietary Broadcom license. The sources were eventually released under Apache License v2. 

** The IMPORTANT_LICENSE file states that sources in the Android aosp tree *Prior* to the commit in the text file has a Broadcom proprietary license file. Bluedroid sources prior to the commit in the aosp tree requires permission from Broadcom.

** The release version of Bluedroid including the Bluedroid sources *After* the commit in the text file has the Apache License v2 - this can be distributed in your Android distribution under the Apache License terms.

On Friday, November 16, 2012 6:16:25 AM UTC-8, Karim Yaghmour wrote:

[Jean-Baptiste Queru]

The license for the proprietary versions that live in the git history
mentions duplication and distribution. It was added in order to cover
the case of replicating the whole git history, which seems to be your
situation.

JBQ

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
> "android-platform" group.
> To view this discussion on the web visit

> https://groups.google.com/d/msg/android-platform/-/Q8ud-cwywP0J.