From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:40811) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZvak-0003m2-2Q for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 02:44:19 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZvaf-00018U-1g for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 02:44:18 -0400 Received: from mail-out5.apple.com ([17.151.62.27]:43813 helo=mail-in5.apple.com) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1ZZvae-000183-LW for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Thu, 10 Sep 2015 02:44:12 -0400 Received: from [17.153.40.73] (unknown [17.153.40.73]) by marigold.apple.com (Oracle Communications Messaging Server 7.0.5.30.0 64bit (built Oct 22 2013)) with ESMTPSA id <0NUG002C9816H470@marigold.apple.com> for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 09 Sep 2015 23:44:10 -0700 (PDT) Sender: afish@apple.com Content-type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 MIME-version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 8.2 \(2104\)) From: Andrew Fish In-reply-to: <362BF159-E748-4B64-BBCA-63D0DEE50158@suse.de> Date: Wed, 09 Sep 2015 23:43:52 -0700 Content-transfer-encoding: quoted-printable Message-id: References: <55C8D046.7040203@redhat.com> <55EFF48F.7090005@redhat.com> <20150909161735.30348.87652@jljusten-ivb> <20150909175753.1013.69101@jljusten-ivb> <20150909222410.14692.78094@jljusten-ivb> <2291309F-6521-4966-B8EB-FDCC1DCD2B1F@apple.com> <20150910004159.19487.83764@jljusten-ivb> <7CD35995-8D54-471A-A410-9401AC93F8D4@apple.com> <20150910053245.26520.89816@jljusten-ivb> <362BF159-E748-4B64-BBCA-63D0DEE50158@suse.de> Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] [edk2] EDK II & GPL - Re: OVMF BoF @ KVM Forum 2015 List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Alexander Graf Cc: Lenny Szubowicz , Karen Noel , "El-Haj-Mahmoud, Samer" , Ard Biesheuvel , Jordan Justen , edk2-devel-01 , Reza Jelveh , qemu devel list , "xen-devel@lists.xen.org" , Hannes Reinecke , "Gabriel L. Somlo (GMail)" , Peter Jones , Peter Batard , Gerd Hoffmann , Mark Doran , Cole Robinson , Paolo Bonzini , Laszlo Ersek , "Ademar de Souza Reis Jr." > On Sep 9, 2015, at 11:19 PM, Alexander Graf wrote: >=20 >=20 >=20 >> Am 10.09.2015 um 07:32 schrieb Jordan Justen = : >>=20 >> On 2015-09-09 20:26:54, Andrew Fish wrote: >>>> On Sep 9, 2015, at 5:41 PM, Jordan Justen = wrote: >>>>> On 2015-09-09 16:05:20, Andrew Fish wrote: >>>>> So you have a legal degree and are speaking on behalf of your >>>>> employer on this subject? >>>>=20 >>>> No and no. How about you? :) >>>=20 >>> No but I have to review any code contributed to the open source >>> project to make sure it follows the corporate polices. >>=20 >> Is Apple corporate policy that you could never contribute to a = project >> that has a GPL directory in the tree? >>=20 >>>> Nevertheless, I have not heard the interpretation that just having = GPL >>>> in a source tree would impact your code, even if you do not = include, >>>> nor link to it. Is this Apple's interpretation of how GPL works? >>>=20 >>> No but thanks for making my point for me. 1st off the rules are made >>> by lawyers and managers so you trying to argue logic is kind of >>> funny. What does logic have to do with it. >>=20 >> Whoa! What's next in this crazy world? Dogs and cats living together! >> Mass hysteria! How can we be sure that the lawyers won't decide that >> BSD means GPL and vice versa? ;) >>=20 >>> Your company started this edk2 project as a BSD project, and I >>> assume there was a reason for that. >>=20 >> And then more licenses were added. >>=20 >>> The reasons rules like this end up getting made is that developers >>> like you are confused about the company policy regarding open >>> source, closed source and protecting intellectual property rights. >>> So your very smart and well versed and you are confused, so >>=20 >> I don't think I'm confused (or smart :), but you are trying hard to >> make it seem confusing and scary. >>=20 >> Anyway, you are correct. We do have rules. But, I don't think those >> rules prevent us from discussing *possible* changes to those rules. >>=20 >>> some more jr. engineer has no hope of getting it right and would >>> copy the GPL code and be clueless to what he just did. As I always >>> say a development process exists to slow down the best developer, at >>> the price of preventing the most jr. developers from doing something >>> stupid. >>=20 >> If we have another repo with GplDriverPkg, then I guess the same jr. >> developer might just go find the code over there and copy it. >>=20 >>>> I would be more worried about the GPL based drivers becoming too >>>> featureful over time, and the permissively licensed code not being >>>> very useful. For example, I'm worried that the non-GPL OVMF may end = up >>>> missing a lot of features. >>>=20 >>> Then logically you should just make OVMF a GPL project? >>=20 >> Not if you are someone that prefers permissive source licenses, such >> as myself. >>=20 >> I'm basically trying to argue the other side of this to not let the >> GPL FUD go by unimpeded. >>=20 >> Laszlo's email raised the GPL question, but I was not sure what the >> EDK II community would accept with regards to GPL. Thus ... I asked. = I >> guess I'm getting a better idea with regards to Apple and HP. :) >>=20 >> In your opinion, would we be able to discuss patches for a *separate* >> repo with GplDriverPkg on edk2-devel? >=20 > In fact, could we just make the non-free FAT source and GPL FAT source = both be git submodules? Then whoever clones the repo can get the license = flavor he's least scared about. Or alternatively instead of pulling in a = GPL licensed FAT driver we use a BSD licensed one. I'm sure someone has = one of those too ;). >=20 > Also for the record, the FAT driver problem is that the source license = states that it can not be used in certain circumstances, which by common = interpretation makes it non-free. The fact that there is a binary or = source doesn't matter fwiw. >=20 The edk2 FAT driver solves the problems faced by folks shipping = hardware, but the source ended up as a separate project to keep the = license clean. I don=E2=80=99t think anyone thought about the binary + = license being an issue back in the day? IMHO the right thing to do is = remove the binary FAT driver from the tree (the source is already in a = sub project), and update the getting started collateral. It seems like = the right thing to do to respect folks with different down stream = licensing constraints.=20 I wish those of us with BSD development constraints got the same = consideration from some of the GPL developers on this list.=20 Thanks, Andrew Fish >=20 > Alex >=20