Re: posix_spawn* license change request

[Eric Blake]

On 10/28/2010 01:42 PM, Eric Blake wrote:
> On 10/28/2010 12:40 PM, Adam Stokes wrote:
>> On Thu, 28 Oct 2010 20:34:11 +0200
>> Bruno Haible <address@hidden> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Adam,
>>>
>>>> Is it possible to have posix_spawn* licenses relaxed to LGPLv2+?
>>>
>>> For what package is this?
> 
> netcf, which is currently one of the libraries directly linked into the
> LGPLv2+ libvirt.
> 
>>>
>>> Have you considered releasing this package under LGPLv3+ instead of
>>> LGPLv2+? You know about the advantages of GPLv3+ and LGPLv3+ versus
>>> version 2: <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html>
> 
> For good or for bad, both netcf and libvirt are managed by Red Hat
> rather than FSF, so the political battle to relicense these libraries
> lies with Red Hat management.

On re-reading this, I see that my remarks could be taken out of context.
 I know of no battle between Red Hat and the FSF, nor did I mean to
imply one.  In fact, I am grateful that both organizations are on good
terms.  Rather, I was trying to express these points:

It is Red Hat management in charge of the licensing of netcf and
libvirt, therefore the licensing decision does not necessarily have the
same goals, when compared with the FSF goals for GNU projects.

I'm not sure what level of effort it would take to convince Red Hat
management to change the license, so it could fall anywhere on the scale
between rubber stamp approval vs. a full political battle, depending in
part on how many other clients of these two libraries might also have to
be relicensed.

To date, I have not been personally bothered enough by the current
license choice to warrant my own attempt to raise a relicensing request
with Red Hat.

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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