btrfs.h and btrfs-progs licensing

btrfs.h and btrfs-progs licensing

[Andy Grover]

Hi everybody,

I'd like it to be possible to have a library that configures btrfs 
directly instead of using the cmdline tools. (I think Mark Fasheh and 
David Sterba have already done some work here.)

However, as it stands, the kernel's include/uapi/linux/btrfs.h and 
btrfs-progs are GPLv2, which means that a "libbtrfs" that is based on 
either of these might also be construed to need to be GPLv2, and any 
program *using* libbtrfs might also be construed to need to be GPLv2.

I don't think this was the intent.

I think we'd be better off if we relicense btrfs-progs to LGPLv2, and 
dual-license the kernel btrfs.h header to GPLv2/LGPLv2 (this may not be 
strictly necessary, RMS says it isn't[1], but we probably want to be 
completely clear).

This will involve getting the OK from everyone who has contributed to 
btrfs-progs. Yay git. If someone more closely involved with btrfs dev 
wanted to spearhead this I'd love it, but am willing to do it too (I 
*really* want a libbtrfs. :-)

Any thoughts? Objections?

Regards -- Andy

[1] http://lkml.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0301.1/0362.html

Re: btrfs.h and btrfs-progs licensing

[David Sterba]

On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 02:13:50PM -0700, Andy Grover wrote:
> However, as it stands, the kernel's include/uapi/linux/btrfs.h and
> btrfs-progs are GPLv2, which means that a "libbtrfs" that is based on either
> of these might also be construed to need to be GPLv2, and any program
> *using* libbtrfs might also be construed to need to be GPLv2.

Looking at "nm libbtrfs.a" there are rbtree and crc32c symbols included
in the library, licensed under GPLv2, the rest is pure userspace code and
the people are around to ask about relicensing.

david

Re: btrfs.h and btrfs-progs licensing

[ronnie sahlberg]

For crc32c you can use this one which is lgpl:
https://github.com/sahlberg/libiscsi/blob/master/lib/crc32c.c


You can use the generator at :
http://www.ross.net/crc/download/crc_v3.txt
to generate this (and others)



On Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 3:50 PM, David Sterba <dsterba@suse.cz> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 09, 2013 at 02:13:50PM -0700, Andy Grover wrote:
>> However, as it stands, the kernel's include/uapi/linux/btrfs.h and
>> btrfs-progs are GPLv2, which means that a "libbtrfs" that is based on either
>> of these might also be construed to need to be GPLv2, and any program
>> *using* libbtrfs might also be construed to need to be GPLv2.
>
> Looking at "nm libbtrfs.a" there are rbtree and crc32c symbols included
> in the library, licensed under GPLv2, the rest is pure userspace code and
> the people are around to ask about relicensing.
>
> david
> --
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