[yocto] COPY_LIC_DIRS, COPY_LIC_MANIFEST and firmware upgrades

[Bryan Evenson]

Martin,

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Martin Jansa [mailto:martin.jansa at gmail.com]
> Sent: Monday, November 02, 2015 3:32 PM
> To: Bryan Evenson <bevenson at melinkcorp.com>
> Cc: yocto at yoctoproject.org
> Subject: Re: [yocto] COPY_LIC_DIRS, COPY_LIC_MANIFEST and firmware
> upgrades
> 
> On Mon, Nov 02, 2015 at 05:13:48PM +0000, Bryan Evenson wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > I'm on poky/dizzy-1.7.2 and I've been using COPY_LIC_DIRS and
> COPY_LIC_MANIFEST to include the license text on my image.  I noticed
> something about the way it operates and I'm wondering if it's a problem
> when it comes to Free and Open Source Software compliance.
> >
> > If I build an image with COPY_LIC_MANIFEST and COPY_LIC_DIRS both set
> to 1, then the image is generated with the directory /usr/share/common-
> licenses that include all the licenses for all the packages in the image.  There is
> also /usr/share/common-licenses/license.manifest which summarizes all the
> licenses in the directory.  Let's call this starting point image version A.
> >
> > Later on in development I add package "foo-extra" to the image.  I add
> "foo-extra" to the RDEPENDS list for package "foo" which now needs the
> new package for proper operation.  The built image now includes in
> /usr/share/common-licenses/foo-extra the license for the new package.
> We'll call this image version B.
> >
> > If I ship a product that was burned with image verison A then it has all the
> licenses for all the packages that were installed in the image.  Likewise, if I
> ship a product that was burned with image version B then it has all the
> licenses for all the packages that were installed in the image.  However, if a
> product ships with image version A and then is upgraded to image version B
> then package "foo-extra" is installed due to dependencies but the license for
> "foo-extra" is not included in the upgrade.  The /usr/share/common-licenses
> directory is not tied to any package, so firmware upgrade does not add,
> modify or remove any of the licenses in /usr/share/common-licenses.
> >
> > Is this a problem when it comes to FOSS compliance?  If so, is there a
> suggested way of including the new licenses for firmware upgrades?
> 
> You can also enable LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE which should create <pkg>-
> lic packages rrecommended from <pkg> so they should get installed together
> with image upgrade, see:
> https://bugzilla.yoctoproject.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3743

Thanks for the information, I'll give this a try.  I noticed I don't see any reference to LICENSE_CREATE_PACKAGE in the Yocto documentation.  Should I add a bug in Bugzilla to add documentation for this variable?

Regards,
Bryan

> 
> --
> Martin 'JaMa' Jansa     jabber: Martin.Jansa at gmail.com