[lxc-devel] Clarifying the licensing of LXC

[Stéphane Graber]

On Fri, Aug 30, 2013 at 03:42:03PM -0400, Stéphane Graber wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> First of all, sorry for the boring e-mail, nobody likes to deal with
> licenses but it's an unfortunate thing we have to deal with from time to
> time.
> 
> Thomas Moschny reported some inconsistencies in the way LXC is currently
> licensed.
> The bug report is available here: https://github.com/lxc/lxc/issues/36
> 
> 
> Basically the way I see it, LXC is made of 4 different bits:
>  - The main library
>  - The language bindings
>  - The binary tools/scripts
>  - The templates
> 
> In order to make the library easily usable by others, LXC was originally
> licensed entirely under the LGPL v2.1 and higher and that certainly
> makes sense for any bit in the main library as well as for the bindings.
> 
> Most of the tools, scripts and templates followed course and are also
> under LGPLv2.1+, some are under GPLv2 and that's all fine since they're
> tools and not libraries.
> 
> 
> The problem is that we currently have some files that are part of the
> library or part of bindings which are licensed under the wrong license,
> namely, they're currently under GPLv2.
> 
> I believe this was an oversight and that we should get those switched to
> the proper license immediately. But I'm not simply going to go ahead and
> do that myself since I'm not the actual copyright holder for those.
> 
> Instead, I'd like the original/main author of those to confirm it's fine
> by them and then we can do that.
> 
> 
> This still means we'll effectively re-license the code of some of our
> contributors without explicitly asking them about it. As I said, I'm
> convinced that this isn't a problem since we're just talking about a
> handful of files and it's always been clear that the LXC library is
> licensed under LGPLv2.1+.
> 
> Nevertheless, if anyone contributed to one of those files we're about to
> re-license and do not wish their contributions re-licensed, please get
> in touch as soon as possible so we can remove the affected code from the
> project.
> 
> 
> The following files will be re-licensed from GPLv2 to LGPLv2.1+:
>  - src/lua-lxc/core.c (Dwight)
>  - src/lxc/lxccontainer.c (Serge)
>  - src/lxc/lxclock.c (Serge)
>  - src/lxc/lxclock.h (Serge)
>  - src/tests/cgpath.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/containertests.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/createtest.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/destroytest.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/getkeys.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/get_item.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/locktests.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/lxcpath.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/saveconfig.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/shutdowntest.c (Serge)
>  - src/tests/startone.c (Serge)
>  - templates/lxc-ubuntu.in (Serge)
>  - templates/lxc-ubuntu-cloud.in (Serge)

Sorry, the list is wrong, the templates and src/tests/* are fine to stay
as GPLv2, so the ones that need relicensing are only:
  - src/lua-lxc/core.c (Dwight)
  - src/lxc/lxccontainer.c (Serge)
  - src/lxc/lxclock.c (Serge)
  - src/lxc/lxclock.h (Serge)

Serge already did all of his and Dwight was contacted about lua-lxc/core.c


> 
> Any file that currently doesn't contain a licensing header is assumed to
> be under the LGPLv2.1+ (as specified in COPYING).
> 
> 
> Additionally, some of the Android compatibility bits under lxc/includes/
> are licensed under a two-clause BSD license. To the best of my
> knowledge, there are no restrictions in linking LGPLv2 code to BSD code.
> 
> 
> While processing that bug report, I've also noticed some cases where our
> license headers are out of date (wrong FSF address) or inconsistent (in
> the form, not the content). I'll be fixing those too before I send the
> alpha1 pull-request.
> 
> -- 
> Stéphane Graber
> Ubuntu developer
> http://www.ubuntu.com



> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Learn the latest--Visual Studio 2012, SharePoint 2013, SQL 2012, more!
> Discover the easy way to master current and previous Microsoft technologies
> and advance your career. Get an incredible 1,500+ hours of step-by-step
> tutorial videos with LearnDevNow. Subscribe today and save!
> http://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/clk?id=58040911&iu=/4140/ostg.clktrk

> _______________________________________________
> Lxc-devel mailing list
> Lxc-devel at lists.sourceforge.net
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/lxc-devel


-- 
Stéphane Graber
Ubuntu developer
http://www.ubuntu.com
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 836 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
URL: <http://lists.linuxcontainers.org/pipermail/lxc-devel/attachments/20130830/d4be4aaf/attachment.pgp>