[linux-lvm] LVM and SPL

[Michael J. Declerck]

I'll preface this with the statement that I am not a lawyer (nor do I have
a desire to become one).


rlatham at plogic.com said:
> sistina this week switched the license for the GFS tools from the GPL
> to the SPL 

> http://www.sistina.com/Sistina%20Public%20License%201.0.pdf 

> I'm worried now that Sistina will switch the license for LVM. However,
> considering there was almost a fork of the project (mostly) because of
> something as "simple" as mailing list policy, i guess openLVM would
> pop up again pretty quickly in that case...   Is it concievable that
> the kernel patches will stay GPL'ed but a more restrictive license
> applied to the userspace tools ? 

LVM is GPL'ed and the copyright is held by a number of entities that have
contributed substantial pieces of code to the project over its life. IMO,
this makes it impossible to relicense LVM under a different license.

Sistina has no intention of changing the existing LVM user-space tools to
another license.  The LVM kernel patches and use-space tools will remain under
the GPL.

As I said earlier, LVM is GPL'ed and has multiple copyright holders currently
that protect its position as a GPL project.  Sistina is committed to
maintaining this status and working with the LVM community to enhance and
maintain it.


---
Michael Declerck, declerck at sistina.com   +1.510.823.7991