License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

bjorn-spockeli — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 14:02:59 GMT

@knuta: Noted!

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 13:36:49 GMT

By the way, I would suggest changing the phrasing back to the original BSD 3-Clause phrasing of "COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS", not "NORDIC SEMICONDUCTOR ASA AND CONTRIBUTORS". This would allow people to use the Nordic 5-Clause even if the file wasn't originally written by Nordic (meaning Nordic is not the copyright holder).

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 12:52:59 GMT

softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/.../158011 suggests that I can dual-license an individual file by placing a different license for my modifications below the original license (which is pretty much what you suggested initially). This looks like it would solve my problem. The file will almost be more licenses than code, but that's OK.

I would still have preferred if the Nordic 5-clause was phrased in such a way that I could just keep it as-is and not have to worry about this, though. Keeping your licensing as standard as possible makes it a lot easier for non-lawyers like myself to feel confident about making contributions. I know what the BSD, MIT and GPL licenses mean, and there are plenty of easy to understand explanations of them online. The Nordic 5-clause I have to interpret myself, and I'm honestly a lot better at programming than licensing law.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

bjorn-spockeli — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 08:47:31 GMT

I agree that NORDIC SEMICONDUCTOR ASA AND CONTRIBUTORS would be a better phrasing. I do not know why only NORDIC SEMICONDUCTOR ASA was chosen by our lawyers, but I have reported this internally and then we'll see if we should modify the disclaimer or not.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Thu, 27 Jul 2017 03:56:02 GMT

OK, fair enough, the phrasing of clause 1 is actually identical between vanilla BSD 3-clause and the Nordic 5-clause (clause 1 is actually the only clause Nordic didn't modify), so adding my name to the copyright line should be OK. However, I'm pretty sure adding my own disclaimer below it is not OK, because that implies changing the license, so I'm still stuck.

Had Nordic kept the original phrasing of "COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS" from BSD 3-clause this wouldn't be an issue, but for some reason they chose to substitute it with an explicit "Nordic Semiconductor ASA" everywhere. I don't know why this choice was made, but I still think it was a mistake.

As it stands, I don't feel comfortable making open-source contributions to any of the example code in the SDK, or even reuse parts of them. This kind of defies the point of having examples.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

bjorn-spockeli — Wed, 26 Jul 2017 13:42:25 GMT

I do not think that this is a mistake, but rather a compromise that are beneficial for the community, our customers and Nordic Semiconductor. We do allow the code to be redistributed and as far as I know it is common practice to add your name to the copyright notice if you change files that are covered by a BSD license, see this.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 19:00:08 GMT

I really think Nordic is making a mistake with this license. This is effectively preventing the community from improving upon the examples and sharing them, which would only benefit Nordic. It would make a lot more sense to me if the examples were released with BSD 3-clause and the contents of the components folder were the ones restricted to run on Nordic devices.

If someone is going to make a pirated nRF5 chip they'd presumably want to steal the drivers, so the license of the components folder would be the thing which makes sense to restrict. Are you really expecting someone to make a novel chip, with novel drivers, which happen to have exact API compatibility so they can reuse the nRF examples?

Nordic seems to be planning to open-source the low level drivers but not the examples, which makes no sense to me. Please talk to your lawyers about this.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 18:55:15 GMT

That seems a little messy, and probably wouldn't allow me to add myself in the copyright line either. I should at least be able to substitute "Nordic Semiconductor" with "Nordic Semiconductor and " in the relevant places for this to make any sense.

I'm starting to lean towards just not adding support for reading the battery, since my personal use-cases don't require battery power anyway. I considered writing the code myself from scratch, but I don't know any other place to get the numeric conversions apart from the code in question.

PS: I just noticed that Nordic uses BSD 3-clause and not MIT (my mistake), but that doesn't really change much.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

bjorn-spockeli — Tue, 25 Jul 2017 15:37:32 GMT

Hi Knut Auvor,

you are correct that the ble_app_proximity example is still covered under the 5-Clause Nordic License. Thus, you will have to keep the Nordic disclaimer and add your disclaimer below the Nordic disclaimer where you state that code written by you is provided without any warranty, if you plan on distributing the modified example.

That said, I agree that it is unlikely that someone will run this example on anything other thana Nordic IC and that it would be great if we could open-source the SDK under the MiT License.

However, our lawyers tend to think that its better to be safe than sorry.

Best regards

Bjørn

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 00:49:43 GMT

Also, the example code I am referring to appears to still have the exact same license in SDK 13.1.0, so it appears the licensing change did not apply to the examples. It appears it will primarily apply to the mobile apps judging from the post.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

Knut Auvor Grythe — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 00:43:38 GMT

I did notice the comic alluding to that recently, but since the change is not retroactive and I suspect that SDK 12 (which is the last one with support for nRF51) will not receive any more updates, I doubt this is relevant to my question.

RE: License when reusing partial code from SDK examples

RK — Mon, 24 Jul 2017 00:19:45 GMT

There was a recent blog post about Nordic's licensing changes. devzone.nordicsemi.com/.../