[Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Ulrich Hecht]

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Hi!

Our Teenage Mutant Legal Turtles have discovered that s390-dis.c contains 
GPLv3 code. Fortunately, the actual code has not changed since the last 
GPLv2 binutils release, save for the license headers, so it suffices to 
change those back to fix the problem.

CU
Uli

-- 
SUSE LINUX Products GmbH, GF: Markus Rex, HRB 16746 (AG Nürnberg)

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--- ./s390-dis.c	2007-08-01 15:11:55.000000000 +0200
+++ ./s390-dis.c	2005-08-22 21:27:46.000000000 +0200
@@ -1,23 +1,23 @@
 /* s390-dis.c -- Disassemble S390 instructions
-   Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+   Copyright 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    Contributed by Martin Schwidefsky (schwidefsky@de.ibm.com).
 
-   This file is part of the GNU opcodes library.
+   This file is part of GDB, GAS and the GNU binutils.
 
-   This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-   the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
-   any later version.
+   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+   (at your option) any later version.
 
-   It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
-   ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
-   or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public
-   License for more details.
+   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+   GNU General Public License for more details.
 
    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-   along with this file; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
-   Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin Street - Fifth Floor, Boston,
-   MA 02110-1301, USA.  */
+   along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+   Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street - Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+   02110-1301, USA.  */
 
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include "ansidecl.h"
@@ -399,23 +399,23 @@
 /* s390-opc.c -- S390 opcode list
-   Copyright 2000, 2001, 2003, 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
+   Copyright 2000, 2001, 2003 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
    Contributed by Martin Schwidefsky (schwidefsky@de.ibm.com).
 
-   This file is part of the GNU opcodes library.
+   This file is part of GDB, GAS, and the GNU binutils.
 
-   This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
+   This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
-   the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option)
-   any later version.
+   the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
+   (at your option) any later version.
 
-   It is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
-   ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
-   or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public
-   License for more details.
+   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
+   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
+   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
+   GNU General Public License for more details.
 
    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
-   along with this file; see the file COPYING.  If not, write to the
-   Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin Street - Fifth Floor, Boston,
-   MA 02110-1301, USA.  */
+   along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
+   Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street - Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
+   02110-1301, USA.  */
 
 #include <stdio.h>
 #include "ansidecl.h"

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Stefan Weil]

Is GPLv3 unwanted for QEMU source code? If yes: why?
Would it prevent inclusion of QEMU in common Linux distributions?

Stefan

Ulrich Hecht schrieb:
> Hi!
>
> Our Teenage Mutant Legal Turtles have discovered that s390-dis.c contains
> GPLv3 code. Fortunately, the actual code has not changed since the last
> GPLv2 binutils release, save for the license headers, so it suffices to
> change those back to fix the problem.
>
> CU
> Uli

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <478FA0C9.8070907@mail.berlios.de>
            Stefan Weil <weil@mail.berlios.de> writes:
: Is GPLv3 unwanted for QEMU source code? If yes: why?
: Would it prevent inclusion of QEMU in common Linux distributions?

There's still some gplv2-only code in qemu, iirc.  As such, you can't
use gplv3 code at all since the licenses are incompatible.
gplv2-or-later is not a problem.

I seriously doubt it would prevent being included in linux
distributions.  The linux kernel, the thing that everybody says makes
linux linux, is gplv2-only right now.

Warner

: Stefan
: 
: Ulrich Hecht schrieb:
: > Hi!
: >
: > Our Teenage Mutant Legal Turtles have discovered that s390-dis.c contains
: > GPLv3 code. Fortunately, the actual code has not changed since the last
: > GPLv2 binutils release, save for the license headers, so it suffices to
: > change those back to fix the problem.
: >
: > CU
: > Uli
: 
: 
: 

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, Stefan Weil wrote:

> Is GPLv3 unwanted for QEMU source code? If yes: why?

The problem is: you would have to ask every contributor whose code is 
still somewhere in the source code.  That is tedious, and takes time (I do 
not even think that an email would suffice).

Besides, it would probably give problems to other projects using GPLv2 and 
using parts of QEmu (Xen, Darwine, ...).

Speaking for myself, I'm not that interested in licenses, but code...

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Ricardo Almeida]

> The problem is: you would have to ask every contributor whose code is
> still somewhere in the source code.  That is tedious, and takes time (I do
> not even think that an email would suffice).

>From what I read once in a slashdot post (it's worth what is worth),
it suffices a public announcement of the change and a deadline
(something around 60 to 90 days). The announce could be in QEmu
homepage and on this list...

> Besides, it would probably give problems to other projects using GPLv2 and
> using parts of QEmu (Xen, Darwine, ...).

>From (GPLv3 myth#2: You can't mix GPL software with other software)
http://blogs.zdnet.com/Burnette/?p=331

> Speaking for myself, I'm not that interested in licenses, but code...

Speaking for myself, I'm not that interested in licenses and code, but
on using QEmu ;) :)

Keep up the great work,
Ricardo Almeida

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <8a6cde920801171244k35d84ec9vf82277d2e5090a4f@mail.gmail.com>
            "Ricardo Almeida" <ric.almeida@gmail.com> writes:
: > The problem is: you would have to ask every contributor whose code is
: > still somewhere in the source code.  That is tedious, and takes time (I do
: > not even think that an email would suffice).
: 
: >From what I read once in a slashdot post (it's worth what is worth),
: it suffices a public announcement of the change and a deadline
: (something around 60 to 90 days). The announce could be in QEmu
: homepage and on this list...

That's not legally correct.  To change a license in a way not
permitted by the original license holder, you *MUST* have *EXPLICIT*
approval to do that.  Otherwise, licenses would be meaningless...

Warner

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Bill C. Riemers]

According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...

e.g.

 *  Copyright (c) 2003-2005 Fabrice Bellard
 *
 * This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
 * modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public
 * License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either
 * version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

The any later version means you can replace the GPL 2 license with GPL
3, without contacting the author.  This is explicitly spelled out by
section 9 of the GPL.  The reason why some software projects can not
automatically update to GPL 3, is some authors deliberately remove the
", or (at your option) any later version." clause.

Bill


M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <8a6cde920801171244k35d84ec9vf82277d2e5090a4f@mail.gmail.com>
>             "Ricardo Almeida" <ric.almeida@gmail.com> writes:
> : > The problem is: you would have to ask every contributor whose code is
> : > still somewhere in the source code.  That is tedious, and takes time (I do
> : > not even think that an email would suffice).
> : 
> : >From what I read once in a slashdot post (it's worth what is worth),
> : it suffices a public announcement of the change and a deadline
> : (something around 60 to 90 days). The announce could be in QEmu
> : homepage and on this list...
>
> That's not legally correct.  To change a license in a way not
> permitted by the original license holder, you *MUST* have *EXPLICIT*
> approval to do that.  Otherwise, licenses would be meaningless...
>
> Warner
>
>
>   

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
> According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
> contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...

In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.
But there's no reason to relicense qemu. AFAIK there's no problem
distributing qemu if it contains GPLv3, GPLv2 and BSD code just as
there was no problem until now with GPLv2 and BSD code. So I'm not
sure what this change helps.

Regards

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Thiemo Seufer]

andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
> > According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
> > contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
> 
> In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
> BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.

Actually, re-licensing BSD code as GPL is legal (but not nice).

> But there's no reason to relicense qemu. AFAIK there's no problem
> distributing qemu if it contains GPLv3, GPLv2 and BSD code just as
> there was no problem until now with GPLv2 and BSD code. So I'm not
> sure what this change helps.

GPLv2 and GPLv3 have different provisions (e.g. the anti-DRM clause
in GPLv3). Both exclude further restrictions of any sort. This makes
them incompatible.


Thiemo

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <20080117223145.GI28842@networkno.de>
            Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de> writes:
: andrzej zaborowski wrote:
: > On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
: > > According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
: > > contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
: > 
: > In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
: > BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.
: 
: Actually, re-licensing BSD code as GPL is legal (but not nice).

No.  It isn't.  *ADDING* the GPL license to a 2-clause BSD licensed
file is legal, but removing the BSD stuff is not allowed.  It must be
retained, per the BSD license.

Warner

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, M. Warner Losh wrote:

> In message: <20080117223145.GI28842@networkno.de>
>             Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de> writes:
> : andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> : > On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
> : > > According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
> : > > contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
> : > 
> : > In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
> : > BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.
> : 
> : Actually, re-licensing BSD code as GPL is legal (but not nice).
> 
> No.  It isn't.  *ADDING* the GPL license to a 2-clause BSD licensed file 
> is legal, but removing the BSD stuff is not allowed.  It must be 
> retained, per the BSD license.

Since we are in pea-counter mode:  if you add something _more_ than just a 
license, you _can_ relicense with the GPL.  That means that everybody 
using _your_ modified version as a base _must_ license the result using 
GPL, or not license it at all.

But I agree with Thiemo, it is not nice.

Ciao,
Dscho

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <alpine.LSU.1.00.0801172250060.5731@racer.site>
            Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:
: Hi,
: 
: On Thu, 17 Jan 2008, M. Warner Losh wrote:
: 
: > In message: <20080117223145.GI28842@networkno.de>
: >             Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de> writes:
: > : andrzej zaborowski wrote:
: > : > On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
: > : > > According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
: > : > > contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
: > : > 
: > : > In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
: > : > BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.
: > : 
: > : Actually, re-licensing BSD code as GPL is legal (but not nice).
: > 
: > No.  It isn't.  *ADDING* the GPL license to a 2-clause BSD licensed file 
: > is legal, but removing the BSD stuff is not allowed.  It must be 
: > retained, per the BSD license.
: 
: Since we are in pea-counter mode:  if you add something _more_ than just a 
: license, you _can_ relicense with the GPL.  That means that everybody 
: using _your_ modified version as a base _must_ license the result using 
: GPL, or not license it at all.

Almost right.  They must license with the GPL, but the original BSD
license must also remain intact within the file.  Since the GPL is a
supoerset of the 2-cluase BSD license, you are actually licensing
under both...

Warner

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Thiemo Seufer]

M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <20080117223145.GI28842@networkno.de>
>             Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de> writes:
> : andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> : > On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
> : > > According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
> : > > contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
> : > 
> : > In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
> : > BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.
> : 
> : Actually, re-licensing BSD code as GPL is legal (but not nice).
> 
> No.  It isn't.  *ADDING* the GPL license to a 2-clause BSD licensed
> file is legal, but removing the BSD stuff is not allowed.  It must be
> retained, per the BSD license.

In strictly legal terms you are right.

With re-licensing I meant "adding GPL licensed parts to otherwise
BSD-licensed code", which technically retains the original license
but makes it practically unusable.

A similiar case arises when relicensing "GPLv2 or later" code as
"GPL2 only". The original notice must be retained, but it isn't
of much use in practical terms.


Thiemo

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[andrzej zaborowski]

On 17/01/2008, Thiemo Seufer <ths@networkno.de> wrote:
> andrzej zaborowski wrote:
> > On 17/01/2008, Bill C. Riemers <docbill@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
> > > contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
> >
> > In order to relicense all of qemu, yes, plus contributors of
> > BSD-licensed code, of which there is much more than GPLv2-licensed.
>
> Actually, re-licensing BSD code as GPL is legal (but not nice).
>
> > But there's no reason to relicense qemu. AFAIK there's no problem
> > distributing qemu if it contains GPLv3, GPLv2 and BSD code just as
> > there was no problem until now with GPLv2 and BSD code. So I'm not
> > sure what this change helps.
>
> GPLv2 and GPLv3 have different provisions (e.g. the anti-DRM clause
> in GPLv3). Both exclude further restrictions of any sort. This makes
> them incompatible.

Ouch, right - I should do my reading. However the conflict between the
GPL versions might only restrict the distribution of a qemu binary.
And incorrect relicensing of the code would be illegal already in
source form.

So yes, probably only the GPLv2-only code would need permissions from
authors, BSD should be ok left intact. All LGPL code seems to be v2 or
greater.
Regards

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[M. Warner Losh]

In message: <478FC8B9.6000801@gmail.com>
            "Bill C. Riemers" <docbill@gmail.com> writes:
: According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
: contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...

I said exactly this in a previous message.  At one point I recalled
seeing some code that was gpl2-only in the tree.  I can't find it now,
so either I'm mistaken, or it has gone away.

The key point being, however, that if there is such code, or any other
code that's licensed under a license that isn't compatible with gplv3,
simple notice on a public forum is not sufficient from a legal point
of view.

Warner

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Thiemo Seufer]

M. Warner Losh wrote:
> In message: <478FC8B9.6000801@gmail.com>
>             "Bill C. Riemers" <docbill@gmail.com> writes:
> : According to section 9 of the GPL, you would only have to contact
> : contributors for code which specified version 2 of the GPL and not later...
> 
> I said exactly this in a previous message.  At one point I recalled
> seeing some code that was gpl2-only in the tree.  I can't find it now,
> so either I'm mistaken, or it has gone away.

JFTR, there are hw/ac97.c, hw/acpi.c and hw/pl031.c.


Thiemo

Re: [Qemu-devel] [patch] s390-dis.c license

[Thiemo Seufer]

Ricardo Almeida wrote:
> > The problem is: you would have to ask every contributor whose code is
> > still somewhere in the source code.  That is tedious, and takes time (I do
> > not even think that an email would suffice).
> 
> >From what I read once in a slashdot post (it's worth what is worth),
> it suffices a public announcement of the change and a deadline
> (something around 60 to 90 days). The announce could be in QEmu
> homepage and on this list...

Slashdot isn't a reputable source for legal research. At least under
european law the explicit consent of each contributor is required.


Thiemo