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

[Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com>]

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On 07/31/2013 10:48 AM, Stefan Weil wrote:

>>  
>> -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.

No.  qemu itself _is_ GPLv2-only, because it uses GPLv2-only code.  That
is, GPLv2-only is the only license compatible with the intersection of
all sources combined together to make the qemu binary.

There are individual files that can (at your option) be upgraded to a
later GPL version, but qemu itself can never be released under GPLv3
without a lot of relicensing work (and likely never to happen, given
that the kernel is the source of some of our GPLv2-only files, and the
kernel is unwilling to use GPLv2+).

[Side note - libvirt ships multiple binaries, where the license on those
binaries differs: libvirt.so is inentionally LGPLv2+; libvirtd is
LGPLv2-only, because that is the only license compatible in the
intersection of libvirt.so and its use of virtualbox code that is
LGPLv2-only; virsh is GPLv3+, because that is the only license
compatible in the intersection of libvirt.so and its use of GPLv3+ readline]

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

Yes, that might be worthwhile to do.  (Technically, COPYING.LIB already
refers to COPYING)

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org


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