Re: [Qemu-devel] Binary package and the kqemu support.

[Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>]

Paul Brook wrote:
> >  From http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/qemu-accel.html:
> >
> > Terms of Use
> > The QEMU Accelerator is free to use, but it is a closed source
> > proprietary product. You are not allowed to distribute it yourself to
> > other people without an explicit authorisation. Distributors wishing to
> > include the QEMU accelerator on CDs, ISO images or packages must contact
> > the author to know the exact terms.
> 
> However the qemu 0.7.1 binaries distributed from the qemu website include 
> kqemu support.  This means you are entitled to kqemu.h (which is
> necessary to compile kqemu.c) under the LGPL.

No, that is not correct.

> By distributing kqemu enabled qemu binaries Fabrice has implicitly 
> dual-licenced kqemu.h under both the LGPL and his kqemu proprietary licence.

No.

Fabrice is special, because he is the copyright holder.  He has the
right to distribute binaries, prepared using his own source, using
whatever license he likes.

That by itself does _not_ grant you an "implicit" license to the
source used to prepare those binaries.

However, if he is distributing _source_ for kqemu-enabled qemu
including kqemu.h, and if he states that the whole source tarball
(which happened to include kqemu.h) is under the LGPL, then you could
begin to make a case for an implied license of parts of the tarball
(i.e. kqemu.h, if it's in that source tarball).  I don't know if he's
doing that.

Also, if he is distributing binaries where part of the binary is
LGPL'd or GPL'd code where the _copyright is held by other people_
(i.e. contributors), then you can make a case that if he's
distributing kqemu-enabled binaries of qemu (that nobody else is able
to legally reproduce), he's infringing the contributor's copyright.

But if he's only distributed binaries which are compiled from _his_
LGPL'd code and _his_ closed source code - well, he can simply do
that, and the binaries come under whatever binary license he's using.

This is all moot, however, as you can just ask Fabrice and he may well
be happy to put kqemu.h under the same license as qemu.

It's only a small interface file, and nearly all of it, or perhaps all
of it (these things are uncertain), may be usable under fair use anyway.

-- Jamie