Origin

Atmel Packs Repository (former Microchip Packs Repository) http://packs.download.atmel.com

Purpose

The Atmel Packs contains registers macros definitions to allow use of Atmel SAM3U SoCs series.

Mode of integration

The integration is made as-is and corrections are performed using individual commits on inconsistencies.

Maintainership

The Atmel Packs are already part of Zephyr Project available on https://github.com/zephyrproject-rtos/hal_atmel. There is no active maintainer. Usually @galak , @stephanosio, @nandojve are people that at some point were involved or helped.

Pull Request

55416

Description

The issue is that now CI performs license scans using OSI approved licenses only and can not identify exceptions, like bsd-atmel license. This recently rule blocks to merge the Atmel Pack dependency.

The bsd-atmel is permissive as found in https://scancode-licensedb.aboutcode.org/bsd-atmel.html. This license is already accepted in the project and SAM3X SoC (Arduino Due), for instance, which is one of first devices in the project. The Arduino Due is a well example of Open Hardware and Open Source which many people have access and play around.

The manufacturer have been licensing as Apache 2 the recently versions of Packs. It seems that manufacturer have been updating licenses only when a new release is made, which proves intention to make code complete Open Source over time. However the old packages stay with the BSD-2/3 special clause, denominated bsd-atmel.

Since community is working with many of those SoCs it is possible that overtime more issues related to bsd-atmel licenses may happen if an exception is not made.

License

bsd-atmel

zephyrproject-rtos / zephyr

Atmel header files with bsd-atmel license #57400