Asking for advice on how to establish license compliance


Manuel Wagesreither
 

Hi all,

I'd like to ensure license compliance for an embedded product I'm working on.

Disclaimer: I've read https://docs.yoctoproject.org/dev/dev-manual/licenses.html and know about yoctos abilites to provide the license text and/or the source code. Still I feel I'm missing the key info of finding out the recipes I've actually got to do one thing and/or the other for? (Providing license text and/or source code.)

And in case of licenses requiring the release of the source code if modified: How do I check wether yocto uses the original software or applies patches and is therreby modifying the source code?

I'd like to know how you people deal with this in practice. Or do you employ the sledge hammer method of just releasing the source code of every single package you're using + putting all the licenses on the actual device? But in some cases, that might not be the right thing to do either.

Are there some licenses I should try to never ever get on my device? A.k.a. blocklist. Heard GPLv3 is such a candidate.

I'd be interested in a very simple guide on what to do for every single license:
* License W: Keep source secret and put license text on image
* License X: You don't need to worry about anything
* License Y: Release source code and put license text on image
* Lizense Z: Release source code if modified and put license text on image

Last but not least I'm very open for recommendations of a legal counsil in Vienna, Austria who can help me with software license compliance.

Thank you all,
Manuel