Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH 2/2] LICENSE: clarify

[Stefan Weil <sw@weilnetz.de>]

Am 31.07.2013 08:19, schrieb Paolo Bonzini:
> 1) The GPL says that "if the Program does not specify a version number
> of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free
> Software Foundation".  This is not true, QEMU includes parts that are
> v2-only.
>
> 2) Provide a default for files with no licensing information.
>
> 3) It is not just hardware emulation that is under BSD license.
>
> 4) Restrict GPLv2-only contributions to user mode emulation (due to
> code from Linux) and PCI passthrough (due to code from Neocleus).
>
> 5) The rules were initially set by Fabrice but are being amended by
> other people (already in commit ee12e1f, LICENSE: There is no libqemu.a
> anymore, 2011-11-15).  Do not put words in his mouth.
>
> Signed-off-by: Paolo Bonzini <pbonzini@redhat.com>
> ---
>  LICENSE | 15 ++++++++++-----
>  1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 5 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/LICENSE b/LICENSE
> index acae9a3..2bd2e95 100644
> --- a/LICENSE
> +++ b/LICENSE
> @@ -1,16 +1,21 @@
>  The following points clarify the QEMU license:
>  
> -1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License
> +1) QEMU as a whole is released under the GNU General Public License,
> +version 2.

I appreciate these clarifications. For point 1, I suggest

... version 2 or (at your option) any later version.

That is more precise because it excludes "version 2 only"
and corresponds better to file COPYING.

Maybe we can also refer to the files COPYING and COPYING.LIB.


>  
>  2) Parts of QEMU have specific licenses which are compatible with the
> -GNU General Public License. Hence each source file contains its own
> -licensing information.
> +GNU General Public License, version 2. Hence each source file contains
> +its own licensing information.  Source files with no licensing information
> +are released under the GNU General Public License, version 2 or (at your
> +option) any later version.
>  
> -Many hardware device emulation sources are released under the BSD license.
> +As of July 2013, contributions under version 2 of the GNU General Public
> +License (and no later version) are only accepted for the following files
> +or directories: bsd-user/, linux-user/, hw/misc/vfio.c, hw/xen/xen_pt*.
>  
>  3) The Tiny Code Generator (TCG) is released under the BSD license
>     (see license headers in files).
>  
>  4) QEMU is a trademark of Fabrice Bellard.
>  
> -Fabrice Bellard.
> +Fabrice Bellard and the QEMU team

"QEMU team" is rather unspecific. Who is member of the QEMU team?

* People with commit rights?
* All maintainers listed in MAINTAINERS?
* Participants of the KVM calls?
* QEMU contributors working for Redhat, IBM, SUSE?
* All contributors?

Fabrice Bellard and all QEMU contributors would be more specific.

The trademark ownership is another problem - not now,
but maybe in 60 years (for obvious reasons).

What about transfering it to FSF Europe or some other
organisation? Of course this needs discussion with Fabrice,
so this can be postponed for the time after QEMU 1.6.

Regards,

Stefan