Re: [Qemu-devel] Add support for new image type

[Paolo Bonzini]

Il 01/03/2012 21:26, Kai Meyer ha scritto:
>> QEMU uses GPL v2. You can use a patched QEMU internally,
>> but as soon as you want to give it to customers (or get it integrated
>> in the official source tree), you must publish all code which is needed
>> under an open license.
>
> It is a shared library.
>
>> If your image access library is a shared library (linked at runtime),
>> the situation is more difficult. The intention of the GPL is still
>> that you have to publish your code (this is also what the FSF says),
>> but there are different opinions for GPL v2.

There aren't really different opinions.  Some people *tolerate*
proprietary plugins, but strictly speaking that should be done with a
specific exception to the GPL.  It is not "some people think it's legal,
some people don't".  It is more like "some people don't care, some
people do".

> http://wiki.qemu.org/License
> Portions of qemu (ie the qed block driver) are licensed under the LGPL.
> Can you help me understand the impact of licensing our contributions
> under the LGPL instead of GPL?

No.  The LGPL parts are separate, but when you distribute the
combination you still have to honor _all_ the licenses at the same time.
 In practice this means the most restrictive license, which is the GPL.

Paolo