Re: Licensing conflict with OpenAFS kernel module

[Sidney Cammeresi <sac@cheesecake.org>]

On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 at 10.38.45 -0500, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> Sidney Cammeresi wrote:
> >On Wed, 26 Apr 2006 at 10.27.42 -0500, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> >>Sidney Cammeresi wrote:
> >>>I recently upgraded two Xen domU instances from 2.6.12.6 to 2.6.16.
> >>>Because I am running the OpenAFS client on each of them, I took the
> >>>opportunity to upgrade that (from 1.4.0 to 1.4.1) which required building
> >>>a new kernel module.  (The AFS client is partly in userspace and partly
> >>>in the kernel.)
> >>>
> >>>Loading the new module failed:
> >>>
> >>>		openafs: Unknown symbol force_evtchn_callback
> >>>		openafs: Unknown symbol xen_features
> >>>      
> >>I think you should urge OpenAFS to relicense their module under the GPL.
> >
> >Well this is not their decision given that the code came from IBM in
> >the first place.
> >
> >I note, however, your ibm.com e-mail address.  Do you perhaps know the
> >channels in IBM to go through to discuss IBM relicensing their code under
> >the GPL?
> 
> I'd suggest bringing this up within the OpenAFS community.  If they are 
> making direct use of Xen-specific functions, then they can potentially 
> find a work around.
> 
> If we've made it so that a non-GPL symbol depends on one of our GPL'd 
> symbols, then that may be a problem on our part.  I don't know whether 
> this is an acceptable thing to do.  Sounds like an issue that needs to 
> be discussed on LKML.

These functions do not appear in the OpenAFS source code, so the latter
possibility seems more likely.  I made some cursory examinations of the
source trees, but not knowing a lot about either, I didn't find anything.
If there's something I can do to help (like sending over my compiled
kernel module), let me know.

-- 
Sidney CAMMERESI
http://www.cheesecake.org/sac/