Re: What license is multipath-tools under

[James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@HansenPartnership.com>]

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On Thu, 2016-07-28 at 22:23 +0530, Ritesh Raj Sarraf wrote:
> Thanks Xose, for digging this information. But shouldn't this 
> information go into respective source files?

If there's a COPYING file, there's no need for individual files to have
a copyright.  The licence of the file defaults to whatever COPYING (or
LICENCE or some recognizable top level file says).  A significant
number of Linux Kernel files don't have individual file header copyrigh
ts, if you want an example of this.

> Recently, at Debconf, I came aware of Fossology [1]. It is a 
> compliance tool for license, copyright and export control scans. I 
> have spawned off a job [2] and am curious of the result. But looks 
> like their server may be having a problem at the moment.
> 
> But it is standard practise in most Free Software projects to define 
> the licensing proper. And for a project with mixed licenses, it'd be 
> best to have individual source files mention their license.
> 

It may be a best practice and even practised by some projects, but if
Linux doesn't do it, it's hard to say it's standard practice.

James

> [1] https://www.fossology.org/
> [2] http://52.26.97.143/repo/?mod=showjobs
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2016-07-28 at 00:19 +0200, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
> > On 07/27/2016 12:42 PM, Ritesh Raj Sarraf wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > > I just ran some compliance tools on multipath and the results
> > > weren't very
> > > appealing in regard to licensing and copyright information.
> > > 
> > > The standard COPYING file mentions LGPL v2.
> > > On the other hand, the majority of the source code has no license
> > > mentioned
> > > in
> > > its header. Some that do have, mention it as GPLv2, and some as
> > > GPLv2+
> > 
> > "No copyright" or "UNKNOWN" files should be covered by COPYING
> > licence(LGPL
> > v2).
> > Except:
> > 
> > kpartx/
> > It comes from partx(util-linux), and these files are under "GPL v2"
> > or
> > "GPL v2 or later". Independent binary.
> > 
> > 
> > libmultipath/prioritizers/ontap.c
> > It's "GPL v2". But it's a plugin. ???
> > 
> > 
> > libmultipath/checkers/cciss_tur.c
> > Source says "GPL v2 or later", and:
> > /*
> >  *  This program originally derived from and inspired by
> >  *  Christophe Varoqui's tur.c, part of libchecker.
> >  */
> > At libmultipath/checkers/tur.c there is no licence, but it's
> > derived from
> > src/sg_turs.c
> > from sg3_utils. And this one is under "GPL v2 or later". But it's a
> > plugin.
> > ???
> > 
> > 
> > libmultipath/memory.c
> > libmultipath/memory.h
> > libmultipath/parser.c
> > libmultipath/parser.h
> > libmultipath/vector.c
> > libmultipath/vector.h
> > These comes from keepalived, and they are under "GPL v2 or later".
> > 
> > 
> > libmultipath/version.h:
> > "GPL v2 or later".
> > 
> > 
> > libmultipath/file.c
> > libmultipath/alias.c
> > Source says:
> > /*
> >  * significant parts of this file were taken from iscsi-bindings.c
> > of the
> >  * linux-iscsi project.
> > And they are under "GPL v2 or later".
> > 
> > 
> > libmultipath/uevent.c
> > libmultipath/sysfs.c
> > These come from udev, and they are "GPL v2".
> > 
> > 
> > GPL code can not be mixed with LGPL code. So I guess libmultipath/
> > files are
> > "GPL v2" ???
> > 
> > 
> > multipath/main.c
> > Under "GPL v2 or later". It's linked with libmultipath.so and
> > libmpathcmd.so.
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