Re: [PATCH for 4.7] libxenvchan: Change license of header from Lesser GPL v2.1 to BSD

From: Ian Campbell <ijc@hellion.org.uk>
To: Ian Jackson <Ian.Jackson@eu.citrix.com>,
	Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@oracle.com>
Cc: "Wei Liu" <wei.liu2@citrix.com>, "Olaf Hering" <olaf@aepfle.de>,
	"Stefano Stabellini" <sstabellini@kernel.org>,
	"Keir Fraser" <keir@xen.org>,
	"Anil Madhavapeddy" <anil@recoil.org>,
	"George Dunlap" <George.Dunlap@eu.citrix.com>,
	"Andrew Cooper" <andrew.cooper3@citrix.com>,
	"Matthew Daley" <mattjd@gmail.com>, "Tim Deegan" <tim@xen.org>,
	"Marek Marczykowski-Górecki" <marmarek@invisiblethingslab.com>,
	"Roger Pau Monne" <roger.pau@entel.upc.edu>,
	"Jason Andryuk" <andryuk@aero.org>,
	"Jan Beulich" <JBeulich@suse.com>,
	xen-devel@lists.xenproject.org,
	"Daniel De Graaf" <dgdegra@tycho.nsa.gov>
Subject: Re: [PATCH for 4.7] libxenvchan: Change license of header from Lesser GPL v2.1 to BSD
Date: Fri, 10 Jun 2016 11:33:02 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1465554782.20050.101.camel@hellion.org.uk> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <22361.36527.731461.736865@mariner.uk.xensource.com>

On Thu, 2016-06-09 at 16:43 +0100, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk writes ("[PATCH for 4.7] libxenvchan: Change
> license of header from Lesser GPL v2.1 to BSD"):
> > 
> > As the xen/COPYING file says:
> > "A few files are licensed under both GPL and a weaker BSD-style
> > license. This includes all files within the subdirectory
> > include/public, as described in include/public/COPYING. All such
> > files
> > include the non-GPL license text as a source-code comment. Although
> > the license text refers generically to "the software", the non-GPL
> > license applies *only* to those source files that explicitly
> > include
> > the non-GPL license text."
> I personally think this patch is a good idea.

To change xen/include/public/io/libxenvchan.h only or both that
and tools/libvchan/libxenvchan.h?

Historically the view of the Xen Project was the hypercall and PV ring
A[BP]Is should be BSD so that proprietary OSes could be ported to Xen
or PV drivers could be written for proprietary OSes etc.

But the view for toolstack libraries (libxenctrl, guest etc) was
traditionally that the project wanted them to remain copyleft. IIRC
originally one or both of libxenctrl and libxenguest were full-GPL but
we decided that was too far and went through a relicensing excercise to
make it LGPL, which allows for proprietary toolstack applications to be
built on top of the foundational libraries while still ensuring that
improvements to those libraries are contributed back.

So, I guess I don't really undertstand the case for / desire to
relicense tools/libvchan/libxenvchan.h, especially given that the other
tools/libvchan/*.[ch] files don't appear to be being relicensed in [0].

OTOH I only touched this file while at Citrix so I don't have any
actual say given Ian J's gotten sign off from Citrix.

Ian.

[0] http://lists.xen.org/archives/html/xen-devel/2016-06/msg01257.html

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