Anthony Liguori wrote: > Jan Kiszka wrote: >> Paul Brook wrote: >> >>>> BTW, why does qemu not carry all bochs bios source? For reference, but >>>> also to fully comply with the LGPL (pointing to the original source is >>>> not sufficient when delivering binaries - like e.g. bios.bin...). >>>> >>> If this is really an issue, then I strongly suggest we fix it by >>> moving the bios into its own project, and have everyone fetch it from >>> there. >>> >> >> Qemu distributes binaries that have been generated from LGPLed sources >> (this is at least the case for bochs, one would have to check the >> situation for the other firmware images), so it has to provide the >> corresponding source code according to the license terms. > > You are not qualified to make the statement "has to". This is a legal > issue and depends on how the GPL is interpreted. The FSF provides a set > of guidelines and so does Debian. Debian's guidelines are more > extreme. If you look at the FSF FAQ on this subject, the main issue is > ensuring that the source code is always available. > > Since Bochs is on SF, as long as we ensure that the version we base on > is always available, you could certainly conclude that's enough.
Well, I guess we are both not qualified to finally judge over this. But this is not my point. > > But please, this is not an issue worth even discussing here. It is only > relevant for people distributing QEMU and it's up to those people to > consult with their legal teams to determine whether they need to do > anything special. And why complicating things downstream when it can be fixed upstream? Because it is only a legal issue? As a redistributor of OSS who cares a lot about such issues, you have a lot of "fun" getting things right when upstream forgot it. But as it looks like, there is a consensus on changing the situation anyway. And up to now, no animal should have been harmed, too. Jan -- Siemens AG, Corporate Technology, CT SE 26 Corporate Competence Center Embedded Linux -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe kvm" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
