[Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Anthony Liguori]

There's a couple changes here.  Please note that no one should consider this as
licensing guidance from IBM.  I'm merely updating this based on what I would
consider community consensus.

The first change clarifies that the overall license is GPLv2.  We have never
had GPLv1 code.  The phrase "GNU General Public License" clearly refers to the
GPLv2.  We cannot say the overall license is "GPLv2 or later" because we have
a number of files that are GPLv2 only.

The second change clarifies that any file that doesn't have an explicit license
is covered under the GPLv2.  This agrees with the first statement in LICENSE but
since it's so often asked, I thought we should make it explicit.

I also added an additional statement that this file only expresses the intent
of the QEMU community and should only be considered informative.

Please explicitly Nack or Ack this change.

Signed-off-by: Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
---
 LICENSE | 8 ++++++--
 1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
index acae9a3..f4bee4c 100644
--- a/LICENSE
+++ b/LICENSE
@@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
 The following points clarify the QEMU license:
 
-1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License
+1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License version 2
 
 2) Parts of QEMU have specific licenses which are compatible with the
 GNU General Public License. Hence each source file contains its own
@@ -13,4 +13,8 @@ Many hardware device emulation sources are released under the BSD license.
 
 4) QEMU is a trademark of Fabrice Bellard.
 
-Fabrice Bellard.
+5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
+
+6) This file represents the consensus view of the QEMU community.  It does not
+   alter any licenses used in the code base and should be viewed as informative
+   only.
-- 
1.8.0

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Paolo Bonzini]

Il 19/11/2012 17:40, Anthony Liguori ha scritto:
> There's a couple changes here.  Please note that no one should consider this as
> licensing guidance from IBM.  I'm merely updating this based on what I would
> consider community consensus.
> 
> The first change clarifies that the overall license is GPLv2.  We have never
> had GPLv1 code.  The phrase "GNU General Public License" clearly refers to the
> GPLv2.  We cannot say the overall license is "GPLv2 or later" because we have
> a number of files that are GPLv2 only.
> 
> The second change clarifies that any file that doesn't have an explicit license
> is covered under the GPLv2.  This agrees with the first statement in LICENSE but
> since it's so often asked, I thought we should make it explicit.

No, files that don't have an explicit license are under "GPLv2 or later".

> I also added an additional statement that this file only expresses the intent
> of the QEMU community and should only be considered informative.
> 
> Please explicitly Nack or Ack this change.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
> ---
>  LICENSE | 8 ++++++--
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
> index acae9a3..f4bee4c 100644
> --- a/LICENSE
> +++ b/LICENSE
> @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
>  The following points clarify the QEMU license:
>  
> -1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License
> +1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License version 2
>  
>  2) Parts of QEMU have specific licenses which are compatible with the
>  GNU General Public License. Hence each source file contains its own
> @@ -13,4 +13,8 @@ Many hardware device emulation sources are released under the BSD license.
>  
>  4) QEMU is a trademark of Fabrice Bellard.
>  
> -Fabrice Bellard.
> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
> +
> +6) This file represents the consensus view of the QEMU community.  It does not
> +   alter any licenses used in the code base

... for individual files...

> + and should be viewed as informative
> +   only.
> 

Paolo

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[malc]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:

> There's a couple changes here.  Please note that no one should consider this as
> licensing guidance from IBM.  I'm merely updating this based on what I would
> consider community consensus.
> 
> The first change clarifies that the overall license is GPLv2.  We have never
> had GPLv1 code.  The phrase "GNU General Public License" clearly refers to the
> GPLv2.  We cannot say the overall license is "GPLv2 or later" because we have
> a number of files that are GPLv2 only.
> 
> The second change clarifies that any file that doesn't have an explicit license
> is covered under the GPLv2.  This agrees with the first statement in LICENSE but
> since it's so often asked, I thought we should make it explicit.
> 
> I also added an additional statement that this file only expresses the intent
> of the QEMU community and should only be considered informative.
> 
> Please explicitly Nack or Ack this change.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Anthony Liguori <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
> ---
>  LICENSE | 8 ++++++--
>  1 file changed, 6 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
> 
> diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
> index acae9a3..f4bee4c 100644
> --- a/LICENSE
> +++ b/LICENSE
> @@ -1,6 +1,6 @@
>  The following points clarify the QEMU license:
>  
> -1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License
> +1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License version 2
>  
>  2) Parts of QEMU have specific licenses which are compatible with the
>  GNU General Public License. Hence each source file contains its own
> @@ -13,4 +13,8 @@ Many hardware device emulation sources are released under the BSD license.
>  
>  4) QEMU is a trademark of Fabrice Bellard.
>  
> -Fabrice Bellard.
> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.

I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
without licenses.

> +
> +6) This file represents the consensus view of the QEMU community.  It does not
> +   alter any licenses used in the code base and should be viewed as informative
> +   only.
> 

-- 
mailto:av1474@comtv.ru

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Peter Maydell]

On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc <av1474@comtv.ru> wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
>
> I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
> without licenses.

If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
down all authors for all the files without licenses...

-- PMM

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[malc]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Peter Maydell wrote:

> On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc <av1474@comtv.ru> wrote:
> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> >> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
> >
> > I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
> > without licenses.
> 
> If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
> then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
> down all authors for all the files without licenses...

Yes.

-- 
mailto:av1474@comtv.ru

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Stefan Weil]

Am 19.11.2012 19:34, schrieb malc:
> On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Peter Maydell wrote:
>
>> On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc<av1474@comtv.ru>  wrote:
>>> On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>>>> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
>>>
>>> I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
>>> without licenses.
>>
>> If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
>> then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
>> down all authors for all the files without licenses...
>
> Yes.

That can only be true if those files are older than LICENSE,
or at least older than the commit which added

"QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License". (2007)

Any file or contribution which was added later (with or without a 
license clause)
cannot invalidate this general license, so QEMU remains distributable.

Nevertheless fixing files without explicit license is desirable,
of course.

Stefan

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[malc]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Stefan Weil wrote:

> Am 19.11.2012 19:34, schrieb malc:
> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Peter Maydell wrote:
> > 
> > > On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc<av1474@comtv.ru>  wrote:
> > > > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> > > > > +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
> > > > 
> > > > I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
> > > > without licenses.
> > > 
> > > If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
> > > then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
> > > down all authors for all the files without licenses...
> > 
> > Yes.
> 
> That can only be true if those files are older than LICENSE,
> or at least older than the commit which added
> 
> "QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License". (2007)
> 
> Any file or contribution which was added later (with or without a license
> clause)
> cannot invalidate this general license, so QEMU remains distributable.
> 

I think you are mistaken, this just clarifies the redistributability of
the QEMU as a whole, given that it uses some code which has strong claims
(GPL) it as a whole must adhere to these. If it contains code that has no
license it just can not use that code, nothing GPL can do about it.

> Nevertheless fixing files without explicit license is desirable,
> of course.
> 
> Stefan
> 

-- 
mailto:av1474@comtv.ru

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Anthony Liguori]

malc <av1474@comtv.ru> writes:

> On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Peter Maydell wrote:
>
>> On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc <av1474@comtv.ru> wrote:
>> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>> >> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
>> >
>> > I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
>> > without licenses.
>> 
>> If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
>> then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
>> down all authors for all the files without licenses...
>
> Yes.

That's ridiculous.

There has always been a LICENSE file with a catch-all clause going back
to at least 2005.

If a file doesn't have an explicit LICENSE, it falls under the catch all
clause.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori

>
> -- 
> mailto:av1474@comtv.ru

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[malc]

On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:

> malc <av1474@comtv.ru> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Peter Maydell wrote:
> >
> >> On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc <av1474@comtv.ru> wrote:
> >> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
> >> >> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
> >> >
> >> > I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
> >> > without licenses.
> >> 
> >> If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
> >> then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
> >> down all authors for all the files without licenses...
> >
> > Yes.
> 
> That's ridiculous.
> 
> There has always been a LICENSE file with a catch-all clause going back
> to at least 2005.
> 
> If a file doesn't have an explicit LICENSE, it falls under the catch all
> clause.
> 

Wishful thinking.

-- 
mailto:av1474@comtv.ru

Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] LICENSE: clarify licensing

[Markus Armbruster]

malc <av1474@comtv.ru> writes:

> On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>
>> malc <av1474@comtv.ru> writes:
>> 
>> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Peter Maydell wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 19 November 2012 18:21, malc <av1474@comtv.ru> wrote:
>> >> > On Mon, 19 Nov 2012, Anthony Liguori wrote:
>> >> >> +5) Files without explicit licenses fall under the GPL v2.
>> >> >
>> >> > I have issue with this, files without licenses are just that files
>> >> > without licenses.
>> >> 
>> >> If we believe this (and it seems a logical thing to believe)
>> >> then QEMU's not distributable until we rewrite or remove or track
>> >> down all authors for all the files without licenses...
>> >
>> > Yes.
>> 
>> That's ridiculous.
>> 
>> There has always been a LICENSE file with a catch-all clause going back
>> to at least 2005.
>> 
>> If a file doesn't have an explicit LICENSE, it falls under the catch all
>> clause.
>> 
>
> Wishful thinking.

I suspect the wishful thinking part is wishing you could give legal
advice.