This thread has been locked.

If you have a related question, please click the "Ask a related question" button in the top right corner. The newly created question will be automatically linked to this question.

OMAP L138 Starteware grlib: TI Comercial license?

Anonymous
Anonymous
Guru 17045 points

Hi,

I read from OMAP L138 Starterware software license that different package components have might have different types of license. For the grlib graphics library I am interested in, the license appears to be TI Commercial.

I searched TI.com without finding a page whose title contains "TI commercial". So could anyone tell me the nature of this license? Do I have to pay royalty to TI if it is used in my product? Can I modify the software?

 

Zheng

  • Hi Zheng,

                  The nature of the license is added at the header of each file in the grlib. Basically it means that you can use the grlib in TI devices only. you need not pay royalty to use on TI devices.

    Regards

    Baskaran

  • Baskaran,

    license said:

    // Copyright (c) 2007-2010 Texas Instruments Incorporated.  All rights reserved.
    // Software License Agreement
    //
    // Texas Instruments (TI) is supplying this software for use solely and
    // exclusively on TI's microcontroller products. The software is owned by
    // TI and/or its suppliers, and is protected under applicable copyright
    // laws. You may not combine this software with "viral" open-source
    // software in order to form a larger program.

    The definition for the so-called "viral" open-source copyleft license policy is that once a open-source program is used in your project, it automaticaly renders your entire source code also "copyleft".

    Then regarding the interpretation of the TI license statement, does it actually mean:

    If you have used this code on TI device,

    1. then you cannot use any kind of open-source together in your product together with it, because they together form a larger program
    2. or, you can still use other open-source software but you cannot make the this TI-part copyleft

    ?

    I think (2) is not a valid interpretation because if one adopts any GPL software, it automatically makes anything used in conjunction with it also "copyleft", which immediately violates the TI requirement. So the TI license statement actually means, when combined with the GPL definition, that NO GPL software at all shall be used together with it. Is it correct?

     

    Zheng