Dear User,

With so much FUD and blatant lies coming from Microsoft concerning the
GPL, I thought I'd clear up some issues, particularly with regards to this
tool.

Spgmr08 is released under a Free Software license, the GNU General Public
License (the GPL).  Free as in speech.  What does that mean and what can
you do with it?

First, let me say that using this application to program your
microcontrollers will in no way harm or alter your intellectual property
rights.  Using this GPL tool will not make your code become GPL.  It will
not "infect" it in any way.  You can go into the microcontroller
programming business with this tool and use it to program customers' parts
without impacting their intellectual property rights.  Nothing in this
tool becomes part of your final project.

You may copy spgmr08 to every machine you have.  You may give it away or
even sell it, as long as you include the source.  You may modify it.  You
may sell or give away the modified version, as long as you make the source
to your modifications available to the users under the terms of the GPL.
They may then sell it or give it away, just like you could.  They can
modify it and sell it or give it away, with source, etc.

You may also make it a part of a bigger system, such as a compiler or some
other development tool suite, so long as spgmr08 stands on its own.  You
may not make a tool that depends on spgmr08 for its operation and keep
that code proprietary.  If you distribute spgmr08, you are responsible for
distributing the source (and any modifications you make) to your
customers.  This is only the the spgmr08 source.  As an example, say
Cosmic decided to distribute spgmr08 with their Linux based cx6808
compiler.  The compiler and the spgrm08 program are totally separate
entities and this is permissible.  Spgmr08 will not "infect" their
compiler.  If, for some reason, Cosmic linked their compiler's operation
to spgmr08, that would not be permissible unless they released that
product under the GPL.

You may not use the source code that comes with spgmr08 in your own
projects unless that project is licensed under the GPL and all source code
is made available under the terms of the GPL.  If you need the
functionality provided here for something you want to keep proprietary,
write it yourself.  If you need to program chips or bit bang a serial
port, you may not use the spgmr08 code.  If you write it, you can license
your code however you want: It's yours.

My rights are different than yours.  I wrote all of this code and I own
the copyright.  I can use it in any project I want and license that
however I want.  I can license spgmr08 to anyone I want under any legal
license.  It's my code.  The situation changes concerning code contributed
to the project.  In that case, the contributor owns the copyright to the
new code.  To include it with this package, they must make it available
under the terms of the GPL.  They may also license it (their code, not
spgmr08) in other ways and use it in their own proprietary projects.

I consider any modules that are used with the spgmr08 to be part of the
total program.  If, for example, you develop a new, faster programming
module (obviously possible since P&E's software runs about twice as fast)
and distribute it with spgmr08, you must license it under the GPL.  On the
other hand, it is permissible for you to develop a better programming
module and use it yourself, just not distribute it with spgmr08.

Please read the GPL before making any modifications or distributing this
program.  It's really not so hard to understand.

Sincerely,

Robert Wuest, PE
Sirius Engineering Company


