[sdiy] STM32F4 synthesis examples

[Hugh Blemings]

Hi Martin, All,

Further to the GPL questions, I had a chat with a couple of folk who 
have worked in the space a bit as well;

Our intuitive view remains that in practice, you're probably ok.  The ST 
license seems to be about ensuring their IP/copyright isn't subverted or 
used cut and paste style where it shouldn't be.

We speculate that "merely" having your source code referring to register 
definitions and/or function calls that are in ST header files oughtn't 
be an issue.

Again, none of us are lawyers...

If you'd like to ask someone who really knows, the crew at the Software 
Freedom Law Center can likely give a definitive answer

http://www.softwarefreedom.org/about/contact/

If you are so disposed, it may be worth flagging that you're open to 
other Free/Open Source licenses if the GPL isn't the best choice in your 
case.  SFLC will have a bit of an emphasis on the GPL of course :)

You could also ask ST directly, but that may take longer.

I'm not sure what the plans are on the hardware side, but last time I 
dug into it in detail, the TAPR Open Hardware License seemed to be the 
best combo of openness and ability to commercialise, but respect that 
you may be preferring to keep the hardware IP private.

I'm also mindful that others on this list will have had far greater 
experience than I when it comes to releasing hardware designs :)

So in closing, personally I think you're ok, but this is as much about 
risk assessment as it is about formal legal opinion :)

Happy Hacking,
Hugh