Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] updated BBN 80211 code?

[Greg Troxel]

George Nychis <address@hidden> writes:

> George Nychis wrote:
>
>>
>> Another alternative is it residing in CGRAN for Doug and Dustin to
>> update it to work with the current trunk, and once complete it can
>> be integrated in to the main GR repo by you or whoever.
>>
>
> Side note, how does this work with FSF copyright?  If someone develops
> something outside of the GR repo, and then you want to integrate it.
> Do you need an FSF copyright from them to pull in their code that is
> already under GPLv3?

I didn't get around to answering George's question from last night about
the BBN code in private mail before I aaw this, so I'll answer here:

  The BBN 802.11 code (there is no 802.11b code) has had the copyright
  assigned to the FSF, so it can go in the real repository.

  It is licensed under the GPL (by the FSF, technically), so there's no
  legal reason you can't put it in CGRAN.

  I don't mind - it was written to be used by the community.  But I
  think we should slow down and sort out the copyright assignment plan.

The real question is how CGRAN and gnuradio.org relate.  GNU Radio's
policy is that all code in gnuradio.org must be copyrighted by the FSF.
The BBN code on the BBN server is clean in this regard, since it's all
work-for-hire on my project by BBNers, and thus the single copyright
assignment contract covers it all.  As soon as it's put on CGRAN and
others start hacking, the list of peeole who need assignments on file to
be able to move it into gnuradio.org grows, and it gets harder.

So I think the top-level question is whether CGRAN is for code that
isn't assigned.  I think that's the only thing that makes sense; people
with assignments can more or less work directly in the gnuradio.org
repository.

There's another, much harder question, about whether the
all-code-must-be-assigned stance is optimal.  It certainly discourages
contributions, but ends up with a clearer legal status.  But that's
entirely separate from "given the assignment rule, what should be the
plan for CGRAN".

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