Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v4 00/54] plugins for TCG

[Aaron Lindsay OS via Qemu-devel <qemu-devel@nongnu.org>]

On Sep 06 20:52, Alex Bennée wrote:
> 
> Markus Armbruster <armbru@redhat.com> writes:
> > Please advise why TCG plugins don't undermine the GPL.  Any proposal to
> > add a plugin interface needs to do that.
> 
> I'm not sure what we can say about this apart from "ask your lawyer".
> I'm certainly not proposing we add any sort of language about what
> should and shouldn't be allowed to use the plugin interface. I find it
> hard to see how anyone could argue code written to interface with the
> plugin API couldn't be considered a derived work.

I am not a lawyer, but I would not have expected software merely using a
well-defined API to be considered a derivative work of the software
defining it. Unless, of course, it is a derivative work of another
plugin using the same interface in a way that is not necessitated by the
structure of the API.

What's your reasoning for why it would be a derivative work? Is your
belief that the plugin API is complex enough that anything using it has
to be a derivative work, or something else?

That said, I'm not sure I understand in what way adding a plugin
interface would undermine the GPL, so maybe I'm missing the point.

-Aaron