[dm-devel] multipath-tools licenses (was Re: [PATCH] multipath-tools: replace FSF address with a www pointer)

[Hannes Reinecke]

On Fri, 23 Mar 2018 21:30:17 +0100
Martin Wilck <mwilck at suse.com> wrote:

> On Fr, 2018-03-23 at 19:28 +0100, Xose Vazquez Perez wrote:
> > 
> > https://git.opensvc.com/gitweb.cgi?p=multipath-tools/.git;a=blob_plai
> > n;f=COPYING;hb=HEAD
> > 
> >                   GNU *LIBRARY* GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
> >                         Version 2, June 1991
> > 
> > aka "Lesser", but rules are the same as in GPL.  
> 
> Ups, what an embarrassing oversight on my part. I guess my brain just
> couldn't believe what my eyes were seeing.
> 
> > >   
> > https://www.gnu.org/licenses/ is a _generic_ place. There is info
> > about
> > ALL licences and versions.  
> 
> That's not obvious to me. In particular the LPGL v2.0 isn't even
> mentioned there, only LGPL v2.1, and that's quite at the bottom.
> 
> It'd be _far_ more important to agree on consistent licenses
> throughout the code. You quoted the file COPYING, but if you look at
> the actual source files, the situation is a bit more complicated:
> 
> LGPLv2.1:
> libmultipath/mpath_cmd.h
> 
> GPLv2:
> libmultipath/sysfs.c
> libmultipath/uevent.c
> libmultipath/prioritizers/ontap.c
> 
> GPLv2 or later:
> 25 files under libmultipath and kpartx directories.
> 
> GPLv3 or later:
> libdmmp
> 
> BSD license: 
> ./third-party/valgrind/drd.h
> ./third-party/valgrind/valgrind.h
> 
> 137 files don't have an explicit license header and can thus be
> assumed to be covered by the COPYING file (LGPL2.0).
> 
> This is a total mess for potential users of our code. Effectively, the
> GPL parts of libmultipath would cause all of multipath-tools to be
> under GPL rather than LGPLv2.x, because the linking exception of the
> LGPL wouldn't apply to them, forbidding linking non-GPL code with
> libmultipath. The GPLv2 "or later" gives you the choice, so
> libmultipath is effectively under GPLv2 because of sysfs.c and
> uevent.c. Furthermore, libmultipath and libdmmp have incompatible
> licenses, and "there is no legal way to combine code under GPLv2 with
> code under GPLv3 in a single
> program" (https://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms -why-gplv3.html).
> 
> I believe that various files besides the three above contain code
> which has been copied from kernel sources and would thus be under
> GPLv2 (the alua code, for example).
> 
> Again, IANAL, but this looks like a mess that really ought to be
> cleaned up. As long as we don't do that, there's no point in changing
> the address headers.
> 
> It would make sense to generally agree on a GPL version (2, 2 or
> later, 3, 3 or later), and apply LGPL to (some of) the libraries and
> GPL to the tools.
> 
Well, as I'm the one responsible for adding 'sysfs.c' and 'uevent.c' to
multipath-tools I should allowed to change the license there, right?

If so I'm happy to change them to LPGL to make things easier.

Cheers,

Hannes