From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:48338) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xkwo6-0006Da-IM for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:11:11 -0500 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xkwo1-0004H9-3D for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:11:06 -0500 Received: from v220110690675601.yourvserver.net ([37.221.199.173]:38266) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Xkwo0-0004H1-T0 for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Sun, 02 Nov 2014 10:11:01 -0500 Message-ID: <54564812.1090503@weilnetz.de> Date: Sun, 02 Nov 2014 16:04:50 +0100 From: Stefan Weil MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <1785958135.88434.1414895287592.JavaMail.yahoo@jws10061.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> In-Reply-To: <1785958135.88434.1414895287592.JavaMail.yahoo@jws10061.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: [Qemu-devel] Help needed - LGPL Violation and Legal Threats List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: Tom Cain , "qemu-devel@nongnu.org" Am 02.11.2014 um 03:28 schrieb Tom Cain: > G'day QEMU wizards, > > I've recently been made aware of an organization that seems to be pretty > actively sending out nastygrams to people who redistribute their > software which is a QEMU derivative. > > It was my understanding that current versions of QEMU full system > emulation are GPL, and older versions (0.8.1) were LGPL. > > The executables that this company distributes are not distributed with > the source, and the company has refused to release the source code upon > request, and has threatened legal action to all of those who host these > files on their websites. > > My binary analysis shows that this is QEMU-0.8.1, can anyone confirm? > > http://bigguyspinball.com/nucoresupport.shtml > > If so, it appears that this website is committing copyright infringement > by violating the terms of the LGPL. > > Any insight would be appreciated! I've communicated with the FSF and the > Software Freedom Conservancy, and they agree that hypothetically it is a > violation. I just need someone to confirm that the contents of that > linux binary are QEMU. From the looks of it, if this company is filing > lawsuits, it puts a MAJOR damper on the open source community, so any > help is appreciated. > > Thank you all! > > Tom Hello Tom, nucore is a Linux executable. It includes many QEMU related strings and other indicators for QEMU code: $ strings nucore | grep -i qemu | wc 44 494 3740 Among those strings, two show the version 0.8.1: $ strings nucore | fgrep 0.8.1 QEMU 0.8.1 QEMU Virtual CPU version 0.8.1 The license information for QEMU 0.8.1 is here: https://github.com/qemu/qemu/blob/v0.8.1/LICENSE That license text clearly states that LGPL applies to the system emulation. Cheers Stefan