* Peter Maydell (peter.mayd...@linaro.org) wrote: > On 9 January 2017 at 17:47, Liviu Ionescu <i...@livius.net> wrote: > > I can't dispute this, but does't the GPLv2 requirements apply to > > the qemu executable only? my JSON files are not compiled into the > > binary, but are data files, read by the executable when required. > > and anyway, the original license covers the original XML files, > > mine are not only JSON, but are also slightly different. > > I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, but merely > my own opinion: > (1) if you're reading in the data files at runtime then there's > a spectrum between "just reading data provided by the user which > didn't ship with QEMU, and QEMU works OK without this particular > data" (clearly OK) and "reading data that shipped with QEMU > and where QEMU won't work at all without it" (the data files > are clearly part of the program as a whole and the GPL > applies to them even if they don't happen to be binaries); > where you stand legally probably depends on where on the > spectrum you are. > > (2) your JSON files are a derived work from the original > XML, so the license of those XML files (whatever it is) still > applies to them. Making modifications or a mechanical > transformation of the original files is not sufficient to > allow you to discard the license... > > With my project maintainer hat on, I prefer to avoid > grey areas, because it avoids potential trouble later on.
Being able to read a machine description from a file at run time sounds reasonable, as do tools to manipulate those descriptions. I don't see why such a description file would be any different from a firmware file or config file, especially if you were to think of QEMU in this case more like a simulation environment which I think is what Liviu is trying to use it as. I agree actually including/distributing those description files is a completely different issue if they're derived from someone elses files; but that wouldn't stop you creating some simple examples (e.g. the existing related machine types) from scratch. Dave > thanks > -- PMM > -- Dr. David Alan Gilbert / dgilb...@redhat.com / Manchester, UK