Re: [Qemu-devel] Licensing question

[Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>]

Il 31/07/2013 07:45, Erik de Castro Lopo ha scritto:
> Stefan Weil wrote:
> 
>> No, there is no such statement.
>>
>> There is an agreement that files with GPL should be GPLv2+
>> (not only GPLv2), but files may also use other free licenses.
>>
>> In file LICENSE, it is said that QEMU as a whole is released
>> under the GNU General Public License.
>>
>> Some files are copied from Linux and therefore must use
>> the Linux license (usually GPLv2).
>>
>> syscall_defs.h might be a copy from Linux (=> GPLv2).
>> If not, the default rule from LICENSE could be applied (=> GPL).
> 
> Thanks Stefan.
> 
> The file does not seem to come from the linux kernel and google
> found a bunch of other files with the same name, but they either
> seemed to be un-related files (eg one from OpenBSD) or to be
> dervied from this file in Qemu.
> 
> That means the file is under the default license for Qemu. The
> LICENSE file simply says "GNU General Public License" without
> specifying which version of that license. Does this mean GPLv2,
> GPLv2+, GPL3 or GPLv3+?

Theoretically, this means GPLv1+ (from GPLv2 paragraph 9: "If the
Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may
choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation").
However:

1) no one uses GPLv1 anymore;

2) the copy of the GPL included with QEMU is v2

So the practical meaning is GPLv2+ and we should clarify it.  I just
sent two patches to do this.

Paolo

> Sorry about these annoying questions, but lawyers tend to be
> sticklers for these minor details.
> 
> Cheer,
> Erik
>