Re: [PATCH 2/3] xen/ppc: Implement early serial printk on PaPR/pseries

[Julien Grall <julien@xxxxxxx>]

Hi Shawn,

On 09/06/2023 16:01, Shawn Anastasio wrote:
> On Fri Jun 9, 2023 at 5:12 AM CDT, Julien Grall wrote:
> > Strictly speaking we can refuse any code. That count for license as
> > well. Anyway, I didn't request a change here. I merely pointed out that
> > any use of GPLv2+ should be justified because on Arm most of the people
> > don't pay attention on the license and pick the one from an existing file.
> Hi Julien,
>
> The choice of GPLv2+ for many of the files in this patchset was indeed
> inherited from old IBM-written Xen code that the files in question were
> derived from. I did not realize it was permissible or even desirable to
> relicense those to GPLv2-only.
>
> As for the new files, GPLv2+ was chosen to remain consistent and to open
> the door for future derivations from GPLv2+ licensed code, either from
> the older Xen tree or from the Linux ppc tree, much of which is also
> licensed as GPLv2+. If it would reduce friction, these files could be
> relicensed to GPLv2-only.
(Before someone points out, I know this is already a problem on other 
part of Xen. But it would be ideal if we avoid spreading this mess on 
new architectures :).
Thanks for the explanations. To clarify, are you saying that all the 
files will be GPLv2+ or just some?
If the latter, then my concern would be that if you need to import 
GPLv2-only code, then you may need to write your code in a different 
file. This may become messy to handle and some developer may end up to 
be confused.
I am not a lawyer though, so you may want to check the implications here.

Cheers,

--
Julien Grall