From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:47860) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4Pmf-0004lI-JF for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 31 Jul 2013 02:21:26 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4PmX-00030e-1o for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 31 Jul 2013 02:21:17 -0400 Received: from mail-ye0-x230.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4002:c04::230]:42011) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1V4PmW-000307-Sy for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 31 Jul 2013 02:21:08 -0400 Received: by mail-ye0-f176.google.com with SMTP id q3so144656yen.21 for ; Tue, 30 Jul 2013 23:21:08 -0700 (PDT) Sender: Paolo Bonzini Message-ID: <51F8ACBE.8030608@redhat.com> Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 08:20:46 +0200 From: Paolo Bonzini MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <20130731115034.ef51e9eec58c6a691f6c9ae7@mega-nerd.com> <51F89E47.4000500@weilnetz.de> <20130731154524.6ad18a2526dd573eade0857d@mega-nerd.com> In-Reply-To: <20130731154524.6ad18a2526dd573eade0857d@mega-nerd.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Licensing question List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel , mle+tools@mega-nerd.com Il 31/07/2013 07:45, Erik de Castro Lopo ha scritto: > Stefan Weil wrote: > >> No, there is no such statement. >> >> There is an agreement that files with GPL should be GPLv2+ >> (not only GPLv2), but files may also use other free licenses. >> >> In file LICENSE, it is said that QEMU as a whole is released >> under the GNU General Public License. >> >> Some files are copied from Linux and therefore must use >> the Linux license (usually GPLv2). >> >> syscall_defs.h might be a copy from Linux (=> GPLv2). >> If not, the default rule from LICENSE could be applied (=> GPL). > > Thanks Stefan. > > The file does not seem to come from the linux kernel and google > found a bunch of other files with the same name, but they either > seemed to be un-related files (eg one from OpenBSD) or to be > dervied from this file in Qemu. > > That means the file is under the default license for Qemu. The > LICENSE file simply says "GNU General Public License" without > specifying which version of that license. Does this mean GPLv2, > GPLv2+, GPL3 or GPLv3+? Theoretically, this means GPLv1+ (from GPLv2 paragraph 9: "If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation"). However: 1) no one uses GPLv1 anymore; 2) the copy of the GPL included with QEMU is v2 So the practical meaning is GPLv2+ and we should clarify it. I just sent two patches to do this. Paolo > Sorry about these annoying questions, but lawyers tend to be > sticklers for these minor details. > > Cheer, > Erik >