Re: [Qemu-devel] QEMU License and proprietary hardware

[Luke -Jr <luke@dashjr.org>]

On Friday 22 June 2007 00:34, Balazs Attila-Mihaly (Cd-MaN) wrote:
> I must prefix this with the fact that IANAL, but as I understand it, you
> must release the source code only if you distribute that modified system
> (with GPL v2). That is, if you use this system internally in you company,
> you don't have to provide your modifications. But if you, for example,
> provide your clients with the modified version, you have the obligation to
> provide them (your clients, not the Qemu community in general) also with
> the complete source code, after which they have the liberty to redistribute
> the source code under the GPL. 

Correct.

> One solution would be (again, IANAL, so please check with a real lawyer :D),

The solution would be to comply with the GPL and release the code. :)

> is to create an interface to the code you wish to include and put the
> proprietary code in a dynamically linked library which exposes this
> interface. In this case IMHO you have to provide only the code which
> implements the interface in Qemu and loads the shared library, and you would
> have  no obligation regarding the code in the shared library.

The GPL is viral. A derivative-work wrapper would be under the full GPL terms 
and could not link out to a proprietary library either. While there are legal 
loopholes in the GPL, this is not one of them. (and no, I will not provide 
any more info on the loopholes I am aware of)