Question regarding GPL and membership requirements for a standards body

[Klaas van Gend]

Hi Akiba,

To me, this case appears to have similarities to the USB gadget (device)
case and the (old) SD case - and the results are quite different.

You're not supposed to create/ship USB devices without a USB forum
membership (and registering official IDs), but that does not affect the
Linux drivers - they're GPL. The same is true for PCI by the way.
The membership is required to keep the standardization effort afloat and
pay for the organization - not to keep things secret.

The opposite example is the SD card forum.
My company (MontaVista) wrote a GPL software stack for SD back in 2004
and immediately got a cease-and-desist letter from the SD forum (and we
were a member of the forum!) because they did not allow a GPL version of
the code. Fortunately, that requirement has been lessened about two
years ago - and lately everybody happily ships Linux devices with real
SD support - not just MMC support.


Klaas



Akiba wrote:
> Hi.
> 
> I’m running an open source project to implement the Zigbee Protocol
> stack. The code is currently protected by the GPL, however there’s been
> a challenge to the validity of the license. The problem comes from the
> fact that the Zigbee Alliance requires membership in order to use its
> spec for commercial projects. Although my code is license free, it’s
> claimed that the membership requirement is a licensing fee. If it turns
> out that the code is incompatible with the GPL, I will need to go
> mod-BSD. However I’d like to get a professional opinion on the validity
> of the claim first. Can someone offer some advice?
> 
>  
> 
> More details can be found on this blog post:
> 
> http://freaklabs.org/index.php/Blog/Zigbee/Zigbee-Linux-and-the-GPL.html
> 
>  
> 
> Akiba
> 
> FreakLabs Open Source Zigbee Project
> 
> http://www.freaklabs.org
> 
>  
> 


-- 
Best regards,

Klaas van Gend

Senior Solutions & Services Architect
MontaVista Software
Phone: (408) 572 7962 (Santa Clara Office)
Phone: +31 40 2801386 (for European calls)