[ntp:questions] A faster settling NTP

Dave Hart davehart at gmail.com
Wed Dec 23 12:18:28 UTC 2009


On Dec 23, 9:16 UTC, David J Taylor wrote:
> As you hint, a lot of this work has already been done for Windows, both
> for the slow clock (before Windows Vista) and for the faster-clock (Vista
> and Windows-7).  One  could perhaps ask for permission to borrow that
> code.

While that might be nice, my reading of the NTP copyright indicates
there is no need.  You are free to use the reference implementation
without additional permission, and with almost no restrictions.  See
COPYRIGHT in the tarballs, or

http://www.eecis.udel.edu/~mills/ntp/html/copyright.html

Some source files have different copyright notices.  My understanding
is all the programs installed are using similar BSD-style licenses
which at most impose a requirement to reproduce the copyright notice
and restrict the use of the copyright holder(s)'s names without
permission.

I am not  lawyer and this is not legal advice.  I am however
interested in reducing the number of different copyright notices in
the reference implementation.  I'm grateful to Max Kühn and Claas
Hilbrecht for removing their copyright notices from sntp and
refclock_neoclock4x, respectively, relying on the overall distribution
copyright.  The fewer copyright claims and licenses involved, the
easier it is for third parties to use the code in projects sensitive
to license issues.  Wasting less time and money on lawyers is a bonus.

Cheers,
Dave Hart




More information about the questions mailing list