From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([208.118.235.92]:47389) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SWrMq-0002X1-5M for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 22 May 2012 11:51:25 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SWrMj-0001zM-QO for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 22 May 2012 11:51:23 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:44070) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1SWrMj-0001yy-Hv for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Tue, 22 May 2012 11:51:17 -0400 Received: from int-mx01.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (int-mx01.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com [10.5.11.11]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id q4MFpF8o018274 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK) for ; Tue, 22 May 2012 11:51:15 -0400 Message-ID: <4FBBB5ED.1080408@redhat.com> Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 09:51:09 -0600 From: Eric Blake MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha256; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="------------enig6FDFBEEF6B2C09044B58F0B7" Subject: [Qemu-devel] JSON license is non-free - how are we affected? List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: QEMU Developers , "libvir-list@redhat.com" This is an OpenPGP/MIME signed message (RFC 2440 and 3156) --------------enig6FDFBEEF6B2C09044B58F0B7 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable The QMP monitor uses JSON as its underlying base. However, when you read the license of JSON [1], you will note that it has a pretty severe limitation ("The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil"). In fact, this limitation is severe enough that the FSF has declared that the JSON license is non-free (even if the limitation is unenforceable), and therefore cannot be combined with GPL code: [1] http://www.json.org/license.html [2] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html#JSON How do we reconcile this? Obviously, qemu must remain GPL, because it has files that are licensed GPLv2, and the overall license is the restrictive union of all source licenses. But that implies that we cannot include any source code or libraries provided by json.org, if such code is under the incompatible JSON license. Is the JSON license only applicable to code downloaded from json.org, but not to the actual JSON language specification? If so, does that mean that a clean-room implementation of JSON (the language specification) can be written with different license than JSON (the license), and that such alternate code could then be linked into qemu? Is this already the case? It would be a shame to have to reinvent QMP to use a different language specification if the entire JSON language is deemed poisoned. Thoughts? Do we need to seek legal guidance from FSF, Red Hat, or any other organization on how to proceed? --=20 Eric Blake eblake@redhat.com +1-919-301-3266 Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org --------------enig6FDFBEEF6B2C09044B58F0B7 Content-Type: application/pgp-signature; name="signature.asc" Content-Description: OpenPGP digital signature Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="signature.asc" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.12 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Public key at http://people.redhat.com/eblake/eblake.gpg Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iQEcBAEBCAAGBQJPu7XuAAoJEKeha0olJ0NqoyYH/2wTI9+0B4uNVg7yL95AqTko eduy6w4BP15NW4jay2CNRDvB10IMKHtHfmQNDVkMTL5r00bqOfXArpc3pGzhcl+b rY4tbimvUxNdczpghlgKvbuqkVHXfmUBfqeyXS39aR3ovF9ZRV/MHn7s7iTtp/Ze 1KJV44ARCergi4x4AQWlYzNS0ZrT53TGmZ65L9LjsAd36YlumHxhtSsg3+MlEobP i51e0o0FmY7iMaKJb/vwkkw5zQXJ/lG7AIHV+/2BAyX9U8NnWrwv6eT/WM3PJ8Mt LmyySYDT6O8OdHsI6cFtLCdhs1LfgyBTMGBGg1a8z7CgIgdae87Y/9nr1d8QYWc= =+ZpJ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --------------enig6FDFBEEF6B2C09044B58F0B7--