Mesa license issue?

[Hans de Goede]

Callum Lerwick wrote:
> Okay, so there's a Second Life bug open pointing out what appears to be
> a license problem with some OpenGL headers:
> 
> http://jira.secondlife.com/browse/VWR-2881
> 
> There is indeed a bunch of headers with "SGI Free Software License B"
> boilerplate in them:
> 
> $ grep -l "SGI Free" /usr/include/GL/*
> /usr/include/GL/glext.h
> /usr/include/GL/glu.h
> /usr/include/GL/glxext.h
> /usr/include/GL/glxmd.h
> /usr/include/GL/glxproto.h
> /usr/include/GL/glxtokens.h
>

<snip>

> I've googled up and down and I haven't found an explanation as to what
> is going on. Mesa's merge review is untouched:
> 
> http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=226136
> 
> Is there a reason these files don't fall under the SGI license? There's
> a provision for "an alternative license" but I'm not even going to
> pretend to understand the mechanics. If so, could the headers be
> clarified, and an explanation made in Mesa's review? And a reply made
> here? And Mesa's home page fixed? ;P
> 
> http://www.mesa3d.org/license.html
> 

This is all very much AFAIK:

These files are indeed a problem, there have been talks with SGI about freeing 
them but those have stagnated, since Mesa is a crucial piece of infrastructure, 
the current situation is being allowed as an exception to the licensing guidelines.

> GLEW apparently had the same problem, fixed by taking headers from Mesa,
> so I'm very confused as to what is going on:
> 
> http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=251191
> 

GLEW contained bits of "code" in some header files copy and pasted from the 
OpenGL reference implementation. I've replaced these with "code" from 
/usr/include/GL/gl.h and /usr/include/GL/glx.h, which are not under the
"SGI Free Software License B" / "GLX Public License" but fall for 100% under 
Mesa's MIT license and thus are ok.

I did this because glew would not be allowed as is, the "SGI Free Software 
License B" / "GLX Public License" exception is only for Mesa and we do not want 
to add any other software under this license to the repo.

On the contrary, we really should start working on removing/replacing the 
troublesome Mesa bits.

Regards,

Hans