What is the "Business-friendly licensing model?"

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What is the "Business-friendly licensing model?"

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stevesarakas
Contributor I

Doesn't the Kinetis SDK license require the company to turn over the firmware and all the patent rights to their product to nxp Freescale?

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stevesarakas
Contributor I

Both the 1.3 SDK builder page and the 2.0 Standalone version download page require agreement with nxp/Freescale license which is not the same as the BSD license. Section 5 specifically states:

Upon request, you must provide Freescale the source code of any derivative of the Licensed Software. You agree to assign all, and hereby do assign all rights, title, and interest to any such modifications to the Licensed Software to Freescale and agree to provide all assistance reasonably requested by Freescale to establish, preserve or enforce such right. Further, you agree to waive all moral rights of approval, restriction, or limitation on use or subsequent modification.

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mnorman
NXP Employee
NXP Employee

Hi, Steve,

The KSDK v2 includes several components, each with their own license.  However, all Freescale/NXP authored content is provided under a BSD 3-Clause license, which is a common, permissive, open source license.  Here are some resources that describe it further:

https://tldrlegal.com/license/bsd-3-clause-license-%28revised%29

The BSD 3-Clause License | Open Source Initiative

All other components are offered under similar open source licenses or evaluation licenses from their authors.

For example, I've pasted the "Software Content Register" for a FRDM-K64F KSDKv2 package, which lists all the software components and their license:.

Release Name: Kinetis So  KSDK_2.0.0_GA_REL1                              

ftware Development Kit (                                                  

SDK) Package - Kinetis S                                                  

DK                                                                        

KSDK Peripheral Drivers    Description: Peripheral drivers are designed for t

                          he most common use cases identified for the underl

                          ying hardware block.                            

                          Author: Freescale                              

                          version: 2.x.x                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                              

                          Location: devices/<device_name>/drivers                

CMSIS Core header files    Description: Industry-standard header files distri

                          butes by ARM for cortex-M cores                

                          Author: ARM                                    

                          version: 4.3 (CMSIS Download 4.5)              

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://silver.arm.com                      

                          Location: CMSIS/Include                    

CMSIS DSP Library          Description: A digital signal processing library f

                          or Cortex-M cores from ARM                      

                          Author: ARM                                    

                          version: 1.4.5 (CMSIS download 4.5)            

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://silver.arm.com                      

                          Location: CMSIS/DSP_Lib                    

FreeRTOS(tm)              Description: A real-time operating system(RTOS) fr

                          om Real Time Engineers, Ltd.                    

                          Author: Real Time Engineers, Ltd.              

                          version: 8.2.3                                  

                          License: Modified GPLv2. See rtos/freertos/License

                          /license.txt.                                  

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://www.freertos.org                    

                          Location: rtos/freertos_8.2.3            

uC/OS-II(R)                Description: A real-time operating system(RTOS) fr

                          om Micrium                                      

                          Author: Micrium, Inc.                          

                          version: 2.92.11                                

                          License: Proprietary. See LA_OPT_Base_License.htm,

                            Appendix A, Micrium.                          

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://micrium.com                        

                          Location: rtos/ucosii_2.92.11                  

uC/OS-III(R)              Description: A real-time operating system(RTOS) fr

                          om Micrium                                      

                          Author: Micrium, Inc.                          

                          version: 3.05.01                                

                          License: Proprietary. See LA_OPT_Base_License.htm,

                            Appendix A, Micrium.                          

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://micrium.com                        

                          Location: rtos/ucosiii_3.05.01                  

SD MMC Card middleware    Description: A software componnet support SD card,

                            eMMC card.                                    

                          Author: Freescale                              

                          version: 2.0.0                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSC-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          Location: middleware/sdmmc_2.0.0                

MBED TLS stack            Description: Cryptographic and SSL/TLS Library  

                          Author: ARM                                    

                          version: 2.1.2                                  

                          License: Apache-2-Clause                        

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: https://tls.mbed.org/                      

                          Location: middleware/mbedtls_2.1.2              

DMA Manager                Description: A software component used for manage

                          on-chip DMA channel resources.                  

                          Author: Freescale                              

                          version: 2.0.0                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSC-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          Location: middleware/dma_manager_2.0.0          

USB                        Description: Freescale USB stack. This is a versio

                          n of the USB stack that has been integrated with t

                          he Kinetis SDK.                                

                          Author: Freescale                              

                          version: 1.0.0                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          Location: middleware/usb_1.0.0                  

                                                                          

lwIP TCP/IP Stack          Description: A light-weight TCP/IP stack        

                          Author: Swedish Institute of Computer Science  

                          version: 1.4.1                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://savannah.nongnu.org/projects/lwip  

                          Location: middleware/lwip_1.4.1                

wolfSSL                    Description: wolfSSL is cryptography and SSL/TLS l

                          ibrary                                          

                          Author: wolfSSL Inc.                            

                          version: 3.6.8                                  

                          License: 3rd party evaluation. See middleware/wolf

                          ssl_3.6.8/wolfSSL_cyaSSL_evaluation_license_agreem

                          ent.pdf                                        

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: https://www.wolfssl.com                    

                          Location: middleware/wolfssl_3.6.8              

mmCAU S/W Library          Description: S/W library that works with the memor

                          y-mapped cryptographic acceleration unit present o

                          n some Kinetis SoCs                            

                          Author: Freescale                              

                          version: 2.0.0                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          Location: middleware/mmcau_2.0.0                

EMV L1 stack              Description: The EMV (Europay-MasterCard-Visa) L1

                          stack which complies to EMV_v4.3_Book_1 specificat

                          ion.                                            

                          Author: Freescale                              

                          version: 2.0.0                                  

                          License: Open Source - BSD-3-Clause            

                          Format: source code                            

                          Location: middleware/emv_2.0.0                  

                                                                          

FatFs                      Description: FatFs is a generic FAT file system mo

                          dule for small embedded systems.                

                          Author: Electronic Lives Mfg. by ChaN of Ageo city

                          , Japan (hobbyist)                              

                          version: 0.11a                                  

                          License: Open Source - FatFs License, middleware/f

                          atfs/doc/en/appnote.html    

                          Format: source code                            

                          URL: http://elm-chan.org/fsw/ff/00index_e.html  

                          Approved Open Source License: Yes              

                          Location: middleware/fatfs_0.11a                

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ivadorazinova
NXP Employee
NXP Employee

Hi Steve,

thank you for your question.

Please, can you provide to us more details about your problem you face to?

Maybe mnorman could help with the KSDK license and the patent rights and tell more details.

Thank you,

Have a nice day.

Iva

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