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

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

[Piotr Roszatycki]

Hi.

Please, release the kqemu/kqemu.h file on GPL license. It would allow to 
compile qemu binary with kqemu support and release the binary package freely.

Of course the kqemu binary kernel module is not free software, but the qemu 
detects if kqemu is available and can run without it.

The kqemu module can be built separately without the whole qemu source. I'm 
using the Debian package and it would be very nice to have binary package 
from the distribution and compile the kqemu.ko without recompiling the qemu 
if I'd like to run it faster.

The qemu itself can be built with kqemu support and requires just a 
kqemu/kqemu.h file. Unfortunately, this file is non-free, so such binary 
couldn't be redistributable, even without prioprietary kernel module.

-- 
 .''`.    Piotr Roszatycki, Netia SA
: :' :    mailto:Piotr_Roszatycki@netia.net.pl
`. `'     mailto:dexter@debian.org
  `-

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

[Adrian Smarzewski]

Piotr Roszatycki wrote:
> The qemu itself can be built with kqemu support and requires just a 
> kqemu/kqemu.h file. Unfortunately, this file is non-free, so such binary 
> couldn't be redistributable, even without prioprietary kernel module.

Is kqemu licencse compatible with GPL? If the answer is "yes" there is
no problem. Otherwise maybe people use it illegally?

-- 
Pozdrowienia,
Adrian Smarzewski

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

[Adrian Smarzewski]

Piotr Roszatycki wrote:
> The qemu itself can be built with kqemu support and requires just a 
> kqemu/kqemu.h file. Unfortunately, this file is non-free, so such binary 
> couldn't be redistributable, even without prioprietary kernel module.

Is kqemu license compatible with GPL? If the answer is "yes" there is
no problem. Otherwise maybe people use it illegally?

-- 
Pozdrowienia,
Adrian Smarzewski

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

[Johannes Schindelin]

Hi,

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Adrian Smarzewski wrote:

> Piotr Roszatycki wrote:
> > The qemu itself can be built with kqemu support and requires just a
> > kqemu/kqemu.h file. Unfortunately, this file is non-free, so such binary
> > couldn't be redistributable, even without prioprietary kernel module.
> 
> Is kqemu license compatible with GPL? If the answer is "yes" there is
> no problem. Otherwise maybe people use it illegally?

Can we please have a qemu-licensing-wars@nongnu.org?

Ciao,
Dscho

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

[Henrik Nordstrom]

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Adrian Smarzewski wrote:

> Piotr Roszatycki wrote:
>> The qemu itself can be built with kqemu support and requires just a 
>> kqemu/kqemu.h file. Unfortunately, this file is non-free, so such binary 
>> couldn't be redistributable, even without prioprietary kernel module.
>
> Is kqemu license compatible with GPL?

No, but it does not conflict either as the two is separate packages by the 
same author.

> If the answer is "yes" there is no problem. Otherwise maybe people use 
> it illegally?

Probably there is people not respecting the restrictive license of kqemu 
just as there is people not respecting other non-free licenses. But it is 
not of concern to this list, only the kqemu author (which not by accident 
is the main qemu author).

Regards
Henrik

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

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Hi,

Adrian Smarzewski wrote:

> Is kqemu license compatible with GPL? If the answer is "yes" there is
> no problem. Otherwise maybe people use it illegally?

 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.

Sincerly,

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni
thomas.petazzoni@enix.org

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

[Paul Brook]

On Tuesday 09 August 2005 16:36, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Adrian Smarzewski wrote:
> > Is kqemu license compatible with GPL? If the answer is "yes" there is
> > no problem. Otherwise maybe people use it illegally?
>
>  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. 

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

IANAL.

Paul

P.S. I'm going to make my usual plug, and say if you're bothered about 
licencing issues you should be using qvm86.

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

[Adrian Smarzewski]

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

It's not clear, but fortunately it will be fixed - see Fabrices
response in this thread.

> 
> P.S. I'm going to make my usual plug, and say if you're bothered about 
> licencing issues you should be using qvm86.
> 

amd64 :(

-- 
Pozdrowienia,
Adrian Smarzewski

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

[Jamie Lokier]

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

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

[Paul Brook]

> 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.

That is the case.

If you look at the licences the dissassembly parts are (C) Free Software 
Foundation and licenced under the GPL, so the whole should be made available 
under those terms.

> 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 not the case.

Paul

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

[Fabrice Bellard]

Piotr Roszatycki wrote:

> Please, release the kqemu/kqemu.h file on GPL license. It would allow to 
> compile qemu binary with kqemu support and release the binary package freely.

You can consider that the header file "kqemu.h" is released under the 
BSD license. I will make it clear in the next KQEMU release.

Fabrice.