Like it or not, Theo has a point... freebsd is shipping export-restricted softwarein the core

[Matt Emmerton]

>
> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.os.openbsd.misc/178267
>
> And yes, there it is, in 
> /usr/src/sys/contrib/dev/acpica/hardware/hwsleep.c:
>
> * 4.3. Licensee shall not export, either directly or indirectly, any of 
> this
> * software or system incorporating such software without first obtaining 
> any
> * required license or other approval from the U. S. Department of Commerce 
> or
> * any other agency or department of the United States Government.  In the
>  <snip>
>
> So, is such approval on file with the FreeBSD Foundation?

More to the point - we probably need to be doing what our Linux brethren 
have been doing - holding out for a more compatibly-licenced version of the 
ACPICA code.

>From http://www.acpica.org/overview.php

<quote>
ACPICA is written in ANSI C, and can be generated under many different 
32-bit and 64-bit OS development environments. Source code packages are 
provided for the following environments: Microsoft Windows* and UNIX*.

1) The Windows package includes Visual C++* project files and other ACPI 
utilities that run under Windows.

2) The UNIX package has a format and licensing suitable for inclusion by 
commercial OS vendors.

There is no Linux* source code package since ACPICA updates for Linux are 
provided periodically in patch form. The ACPICA subsystem is modified to 
integrate smoothly with the Linux kernel source. This includes conversion of 
the ACPICA source code to the Linux kernel coding standard, and licensing 
under the GNU General Public License.
</quote>

Seems like the FSF needs to work on a BSD-compatible licence for this code 
too.

Regards,
--
Matt Emmerton