On 07/31/2013 12:19:03 AM, Stefan Weil wrote:
Am 31.07.2013 03:50, schrieb Erik de Castro Lopo:
> Hi all,
>
> I have a patch I would like to submit and I am currently running it
past
> my employer's legal department. The legal department has identified
10
> different licenses in the Qemu codebase and has asked about the two
files
> I am modifying:
>
> linux-user/syscall.c
> linux-user/syscall_defs.h
>
> For the first its easy as it is clearly marked as GPLv2+. The
second is
> unmarked. Is there some blanket statement somewhere that all files
that
> are not explicitly marked are under say GPLv2+?
>
> Cheers,
> Erik
No, there is no such statement.
There is an agreement that files with GPL should be GPLv2+
(not only GPLv2), but files may also use other free licenses.
In file LICENSE, it is said that QEMU as a whole is released
under the GNU General Public License.
Which, if you don't specify, could mean GPLv1.
Some files are copied from Linux and therefore must use
the Linux license (usually GPLv2).
syscall_defs.h might be a copy from Linux (=> GPLv2).
If not, the default rule from LICENSE could be applied (=> GPL).
Some directories, such as TCG, have their own LICENSE files. These are
generally BSD-style license which are donor-compatible (but not
receiver-compatible) with GPLv2 or later.
(If "you are obligated to include this license text verbatim, but it
does not actually apply to the file" is an acceptable definition of
"compatible", but that's a legal argument nobody's made in court yet so
I'm sure you're fine. Nor has anybody recently brought up whether "the
Software" you're obligated to include it in is just source versions or
requires the license text to be in the binary; Android does it to be
safe, most others don't bother.)
Rob
(Personally I look back at the days when my Commodore 64 came bundled
with a "Disk Bonus Pack" of public domain software mostly written by
Jim Butterfield, and going "why did we stop doing that again? Because
awaiting hot coffee lawsuits was worse than awaiting patent troll
lawsuits?")
