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The software isn't fully open-source either. Some components of the USB stack are licensed under ST's "Ultimate Liberty License" [1], which is clearly not open

The software isn't fully open-source either. Some components of the USB stack are licensed under ST's "Ultimate Liberty License" [1], which is clearly not open source: > 5. No use, reproduction or redistribution of this software partially or totally may be done in any manner that would subject this software to any Open Source Terms... In fact, I suspect that Arduino may be in violation of both this license and the GPL by linking the ULL licensed code with GPL-licensed Arduino code. [1]: http://www.st.com/SLA0044 http://www.st.com/SLA0044

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
The end user does the linking and very likely never distributes a compiled binary to other parties so GPL doesn't take effect.
bscphil 5y ago
> ST's "Ultimate Liberty License" Wow. That's a shocking level of assholery. It's effectively a BSD license with an added restriction which says it can't be licensed (e.g. as part of a combined work) under any open source license. So it's an anti-open-source poison pill license under the guise of an "ultimate liberty" (??) license. It takes some insanity to freely license your software to your competitors to use in their closed-source products while explicitly adding a term to your license to prevent hobbyists from using it as open source software. > In fact, I suspect that Arduino may be in violation of both this license and the GPL by linking the ULL licensed code with GPL-licensed Arduino code. Yes, assuming that the FSF is correct that the GPL prohibits linking. IIRC GPL3 is clearer about this than GPL2. > You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program ... provided that you also meet all of these conditions ... You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html Edit: I removed one claim about the license being self-contradictory. On closer inspection, it is clearly not an open source license, because it requires that the software only be used "solely and exclusively on or in combination with a microcontroller or microprocessor device manufactured by or for STMicroelectronics."
- kmeisthax 5y ago
  Question: are judges expected to solve Russell's paradox? Because a "no open source" clause presents exactly that kind of paradox. Just try and answer me this: is the ULL an Open Source license? If the ULL is an Open Source license (perhaps because it provides all the same freedoms as one), then you can't actually use those freedoms, because of the no-open-source clause... which makes it not an Open Source license. If the ULL is NOT an Open Source license (perhaps because of the restriction against a field of endeavor), then the no-open-source clause does not trip... which means you have all the freedoms of an Open Source license. Which makes the ULL an Open Source license. No clue if you could use this argument in court to invalidate the no-open-source clause.
  - bscphil 5y ago
    Ha, yes, that's what I thought initially as well. I believe the only valid possibility would be that in claiming to apply the license to the work, ST has actually failed to apply the license to the work, so all purported licenses to the work were actually invalid. Similarly if I have a license text which simply says "you may do whatever you want with the work, except that you may not receive, use, or distribute the work under the terms of this license" that's just ... a failed license. The problem is that the ULL is actually not an open source license anyway, and this became apparent when I gave it a closer reading: > The recipient will not take any action that jeopardizes STMicroelectronics and its licensors' proprietary rights This appears to make political lobbying to abolish intellectual property a violation of the terms of the license, putting it in probable violation of the OSI Definition item 5: "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups" > This software or any part thereof, including modifications and/or derivative works of this software, must be used and execute solely and exclusively on or in combination with a microcontroller or microprocessor device manufactured by or for STMicroelectronics. This is a clear violation of the OSI Definition item 10: "License Must Be Technology-Neutral" and item 6: "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor". So unfortunately you don't get the fun paradox like I initially thought, because the license is clearly not an open source license even without the "no open source" clause.
    - 5y ago
alranel 5y ago
Can you please link the repository you're talking about?
- duskwuff 5y ago
  I stand corrected on the USB bit, actually -- it looks like you're using an alternate USB library which might avoid the licensing issue -- but some components of OpenAMP are provided under this license, e.g. https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-mbed/blob/e50ec8aa1b1cd3079566b66b22bf8ded5e253cbb/libraries/openamp_arduino/src/openamp.c https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-mbed/blob/e50ec8aa1b1...

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

The end user does the linking and very likely never distributes a compiled binary to other parties so GPL doesn't take effect.

bscphil 5y ago

> ST's "Ultimate Liberty License" Wow. That's a shocking level of assholery. It's effectively a BSD license with an added restriction which says it can't be licensed (e.g. as part of a combined work) under any open source license. So it's an anti-open-source poison pill license under the guise of an "ultimate liberty" (??) license. It takes some insanity to freely license your software to your competitors to use in their closed-source products while explicitly adding a term to your license to prevent hobbyists from using it as open source software. > In fact, I suspect that Arduino may be in violation of both this license and the GPL by linking the ULL licensed code with GPL-licensed Arduino code. Yes, assuming that the FSF is correct that the GPL prohibits linking. IIRC GPL3 is clearer about this than GPL2. > You may convey a work based on the Program, or the modifications to produce it from the Program ... provided that you also meet all of these conditions ... You must license the entire work, as a whole, under this License to anyone who comes into possession of a copy. This License will therefore apply, along with any applicable section 7 additional terms, to the whole of the work, and all its parts, regardless of how they are packaged. https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.en.html Edit: I removed one claim about the license being self-contradictory. On closer inspection, it is clearly not an open source license, because it requires that the software only be used "solely and exclusively on or in combination with a microcontroller or microprocessor device manufactured by or for STMicroelectronics."

kmeisthax 5y ago
Question: are judges expected to solve Russell's paradox? Because a "no open source" clause presents exactly that kind of paradox. Just try and answer me this: is the ULL an Open Source license? If the ULL is an Open Source license (perhaps because it provides all the same freedoms as one), then you can't actually use those freedoms, because of the no-open-source clause... which makes it not an Open Source license. If the ULL is NOT an Open Source license (perhaps because of the restriction against a field of endeavor), then the no-open-source clause does not trip... which means you have all the freedoms of an Open Source license. Which makes the ULL an Open Source license. No clue if you could use this argument in court to invalidate the no-open-source clause.
- bscphil 5y ago
  Ha, yes, that's what I thought initially as well. I believe the only valid possibility would be that in claiming to apply the license to the work, ST has actually failed to apply the license to the work, so all purported licenses to the work were actually invalid. Similarly if I have a license text which simply says "you may do whatever you want with the work, except that you may not receive, use, or distribute the work under the terms of this license" that's just ... a failed license. The problem is that the ULL is actually not an open source license anyway, and this became apparent when I gave it a closer reading: > The recipient will not take any action that jeopardizes STMicroelectronics and its licensors' proprietary rights This appears to make political lobbying to abolish intellectual property a violation of the terms of the license, putting it in probable violation of the OSI Definition item 5: "No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups" > This software or any part thereof, including modifications and/or derivative works of this software, must be used and execute solely and exclusively on or in combination with a microcontroller or microprocessor device manufactured by or for STMicroelectronics. This is a clear violation of the OSI Definition item 10: "License Must Be Technology-Neutral" and item 6: "No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor". So unfortunately you don't get the fun paradox like I initially thought, because the license is clearly not an open source license even without the "no open source" clause.
  - 5y ago

alranel 5y ago

Can you please link the repository you're talking about?

duskwuff 5y ago
I stand corrected on the USB bit, actually -- it looks like you're using an alternate USB library which might avoid the licensing issue -- but some components of OpenAMP are provided under this license, e.g. https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-mbed/blob/e50ec8aa1b1cd3079566b66b22bf8ded5e253cbb/libraries/openamp_arduino/src/openamp.c https://github.com/arduino/ArduinoCore-mbed/blob/e50ec8aa1b1...