Re: libxenvchan license (lGPLv2.1) and xen/include/public/COPYING license?

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad@kernel.org>]

On Mon, Jun 06, 2016 at 05:36:23PM -0400, Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk wrote:
> Hey!

+CC Lars.
> 
> I picked the list of people on this email from the git log on tools/misc/libvchan/
> (albeit this is about xen/include/public/io/libxenvchan.h).
> 
> The problem is that the 'COPYING' file in the root directory of Xen source 
> says:
> 
> "                                                                                  
> Licensing Exceptions (the relaxed BSD-style license)                               
> ----------------------------------------------------                               
>                                                                                    
> For the convenience of users and those who are porting OSes to run as              
> Xen guests, certain files in this repository are not subject to the                
> GPL when distributed separately or included in software packages                   
> outside this repository."
> 
> The libxenvchan.h header file is an Lesser GPLv2.1. Which would
> imply that one could ignore the giant @section LICENSE in the libxenvchan.h
> and treat it as non-GPL...
> 
> But to make the matters more complicated the ./COPYING files continues
> with:
> 
> "Instead we specify a much more relaxed                    
> BSD-style license. Affected files include the Xen interface headers                
> (xen/include/public/COPYING), MiniOS (extras/mini-os) and various                  
> drivers, support functions and header files within Xen-aware Linux                 
> source trees.  In all such cases, license terms are stated at the top              
> of the file or in a COPYING file in the same directory. Note that                  
> _any_ file that is modified and then distributed within a Linux kernel             
> is still subject to the GNU GPL.                      "
> 
> Great, so if I break this up:
> 
>  a) "Xen interface headers (xen/include/public/COPYING),"
>  b) "MiniOS (..) and various drivers,"
>  c) "support functions and header files with Xen-aware Linux
>      source trees."
> 
> Well, libxenvchan is a).
> 
> What?
> 
> Yes, if I look in xen/include/public/COPYING it says:
> 
> "
> XEN NOTICE
> ==========
> 
> This copyright applies to all files within this subdirectory and its
> subdirectories:
>   include/public/*.h
>   include/public/hvm/*.h
>   include/public/io/*.h
> 
> The intention is that these files can be freely copied into the source
> tree of an operating system when porting that OS to run on Xen. Doing
> so does *not* cause the OS to become subject to the terms of the GPL
> "
> 
> and libxenvchan.h is in ./xen/include/public/io/libxenvchan.h
> 
> Also it is in FreeBSD (source tree): ./sys/xen/interface/io/libxenvchan.h
> 
> That looks to be an oversigh. The commit that introduced the file is:
> commit 1a16a3351ff2f2cf9f0cc0a27c89a0652eb8dfb4
> Author: Daniel De Graaf <dgdegra@tycho.nsa.gov>
> Date:   Thu Oct 6 19:44:40 2011 +0100
> 
>     libvchan: interdomain communications library
> 
> As such I was wondering if the folks who wrote/checked the file in
> could weight in on what their intention was in regards to this file?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> _______________________________________________
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> Xen-devel@lists.xen.org
> http://lists.xen.org/xen-devel

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