Linux Virtualization - May 2013 - [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v2 00/11] qemu: use virtio linux headers in portable code

Anthony Liguori <anthony at codemonkey.ws> writes:
> The headers say they are BSD licensed... but they include a GPLv2+
> header.  Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
It makes perfect sense: you're overthinking it.  It just means that
copying the BSD headers outside Linux is encouraged.

And it's clearly nonsensical to claim the GPL on kernel headers means
that userspace needs to be GPL.  So please ignore this licensing
red-herring.

And we'll bikeshed the headers in the standard when we have to :)  They
certainly don't need to be cut&paste into the kernel sources.

Cheers,
Rusty.

Rusty Russell <rusty at rustcorp.com.au> writes:
> Anthony Liguori <anthony at codemonkey.ws> writes:
>> The headers say they are BSD licensed... but they include a GPLv2+
>> header.  Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
>
> It makes perfect sense: you're overthinking it.  It just means that
> copying the BSD headers outside Linux is encouraged.
Copying by hand and modifying.  This patch series attempts to do it
automatically within QEMU.
> And it's clearly nonsensical to claim the GPL on kernel headers means
> that userspace needs to be GPL.  So please ignore this licensing
> red-herring.
You're missing context, I suspect.  This series is trying to
automatically copy the headers from Linux.  We currently have a manually
copied version.

The headers are not currently well suited for automatic copying because
(1) they use kernel types (2) they pull in dependencies from throughout
the kernel.

This discussion comes down to whether we want to make it easier to
automatically copy the headers or do we maintain the status quo and
require manual munging to pull in the headers.

Regards,

Anthony Liguori
>
> And we'll bikeshed the headers in the standard when we have to :)  They
> certainly don't need to be cut&paste into the kernel sources.
>
> Cheers,
> Rusty.

On Wed, May 29, 2013 at 08:05:29AM -0500, Anthony Liguori
wrote:
> Rusty Russell <rusty at rustcorp.com.au> writes:
> 
> > Anthony Liguori <anthony at codemonkey.ws> writes:
> >> The headers say they are BSD licensed... but they include a GPLv2+
> >> header.  Doesn't make a lot of sense, does it?
> >
> > It makes perfect sense: you're overthinking it.  It just means
that
> > copying the BSD headers outside Linux is encouraged.
> 
> Copying by hand and modifying.  This patch series attempts to do it
> automatically within QEMU.
> 
> > And it's clearly nonsensical to claim the GPL on kernel headers
means
> > that userspace needs to be GPL.  So please ignore this licensing
> > red-herring.
> 
> You're missing context, I suspect.  This series is trying to
> automatically copy the headers from Linux.  We currently have a manually
> copied version.
> 
> The headers are not currently well suited for automatic copying because
> (1) they use kernel types (2) they pull in dependencies from throughout
> the kernel.
> 
> This discussion comes down to whether we want to make it easier to
> automatically copy the headers or do we maintain the status quo and
> require manual munging to pull in the headers.
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Anthony Liguori
Okay, what if I

1. add a stub if_ether.h with a couple of macros we want
2. replace the types during copying

Would this address all concerns?
> >
> > And we'll bikeshed the headers in the standard when we have to :) 
They
> > certainly don't need to be cut&paste into the kernel sources.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > Rusty.