On 03/12/2013 10:15 AM, Eric Blake wrote:
> As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with leaving the file as
> BSD licensed instead of trying to insist that it be LGPL.  The block
> layer will still be [L]GPL because of other files linked together, but
> there is nothing inherently wrong with linking a BSD file into an [L]GPL
> product.  In other words, if you are okay with keeping the existing
> looser BSD license on this file only, it still won't change the license
> of the overall block layer, and it would save you the hassle of tracking
> down earlier authors to ask for a relicense.

Another alternative is to have two licenses covering appropriate
portions of the file.  For example, aio-win32.c has two licenses: a
GPL2-only license for older history, and a GPLv2+ license for all new
changes.  In your case, you might be able to write a license that states
that contents of code copied from other files is BSD, but all new
contributions are LGPLv2+.

But again, this is something where I suggest you get an official answer
from a maintainer, and not just opinions from a random reviewer,
regarding what approach you should take to licensing your code motion.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org