Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v4 02/21] acpi: Prevent GPL-only code from seeping into non-GPL binaries

[Lars Kurth <lars.kurth@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 20/09/2016 11:14, "Ian Jackson" <ian.jackson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>Boris Ostrovsky writes ("[PATCH v4 02/21] acpi: Prevent GPL-only code
>from seeping into non-GPL binaries"):
>> Some code (specifically, introduced by commit 801d469ad ("[HVM] ACPI
>> support patch 3 of 4: ACPI _PRT table.")) has only been licensed under
>> GPLv2. We want to prevent this code from showing up in non-GPL
>> binaries which might become possible after we make ACPI builder code
>> available to users other than hvmloader.
>> 
>> There are two pieces that we need to be careful about:
>> (1) A small piece of code in dsdt.asl that implements _PIC method
>> (2) A fragment of ASL generator in mk_dsdt.c that describes PCI
>>     interrupt routing.
>> 
>> The cleanest way to deal with this seems to be taking generatedi ASL
>> chunk from (2), adding it to dsdt.asl and keeping dsdt.asl GPL-only.
>
>This approach leaves us with the whole of dsdt.asl declared to be
>GPLv2.  If you are trying to relicence it as LGPLv2.1 this is not a
>good idea.
>
>Using this approach, if at some later point we get the missing ack
>from Lenovo, we would have to redo the licence review for the whole of
>dsdt.asl.  We would also have to ask Oracle's permission to relicense
>bits of the build system etc. !
>
>At the very least we should operate separate inbound/outbound
>licensing for this one file.

Boris was waiting for the appropriate text from me, which I sent to
this thread just before your reply came in. I proposed two parts
./COPYING and ./gpl/COPYING

>But as I wrote on IRC, I think it would also be best to split out
>_just the troublesome portions_ into their own files, and include them
>at build time.  That way we have file-by-file source licensing.

As mentioned on IRC, if that can be done, that would preferable.
Aka, we would have a LGPLv2.1 dsdt.asl, which then would include
the troublesome portions from ./gpl/ optionally when the library
is built for gpl.

Regards
Lars

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