Re: [Qemu-devel] FreeOSZoo will stop March 1, 2005

[James Mastros]

Jim C. Brown wrote:
> > a) iEmulator wouldn't use kqemu anyway.  kqemu is for running 
> > x86-on-x86.  iEmulator is for x86-on-PowerPC.  Thus, the iEmulator 
> > people aren't loosing anything.
> But they are using qemu. If qemu was closed source, then iEmulator wouldn't have
> been able to do that.
Yes, this is my point.  By making kqemu closed source, he isn't hurting 
iEmulator, but is hurting people who do use it.  The iEmulator people 
couldn't care less about the status of kqemu.  Sure, it may have a bad 
effect on some other people selling qemu wrappers.  It certainly has ill 
effects on people who are trying to run x86-on-x86, and having problems, 
because they can't try looking through the kqemu source, and fixing 
problems that may live there.

> Of course qemu isnt under the GPL at all, so that is impossible. Only qemu-user
> code uses the GPL license, and that is probably due to the fact that it uses
> linux kernel code.
Yes, it is, read LICENSE.  qemu-user is under the GPL (proper), 
qemu-proper and libqemu are under the lesser GPL.  I'd recommend to 
Fabrice re-licensing under the GPL proper instead of the LGPL -- if you 
don't like people selling products based on qemu without them being 
open-source, then the GPL is probably closer to your wishes then the 
LGPL.  (Of course, doing this requires consent from everyone you've ever 
taken a patch from, or removal of their modifications, which may or may 
not be feasible.)

> qemu system emulation is under the BSD license iirc.
That'd be very silly for him to get in a huff about what is completely 
legal to do under the license that he chose.

> > If iEmulator is not breaking the GPL, then put the code into the qemu 
> > CVS.  If they are, then start making quiet threats.  If they don't open 
> > up, then talk to GNU, http://www.softwarefreedom.org/.  If they still 
> > don't, then it's time to make loud threats -- post to /., etc.
> >
> > Don't punish everybody because a few folks aren't playing by the rules.
>
> I agree, but the main problem would be legal. If you can't get the courts
> to side with you, then you're sunk.
Well, that's really not true.  The main problem is economic.  If you 
make it uneconomical for the "bad" people to behave the way they are, 
they will stop.  You can do that by going through the courts, and 
obtaining a judgment, but that's quite possibly worse for you then it is 
for them -- even if you win.

You can also go to the court of public opinion.  How many of iEmulator's 
customers read /.?  How many would still be customers if they found out 
that iEmulator rips off open-source code, which they could just as well 
use directly, and not pay thirty bucks for, to boot?  I suspect enough 
of them that they will want to comply with the license, and avoid 
embaressment.

> Presumably he's going to sell kqemu, and he is using this as a test run before
> he tries to sell the code to the big companies and get the megabucks. (At least
> that is what I would do.)
That's a possibility.  If that's true, then I hope the company that buys 
him out is very nice, or we're all going to be out a maintainer of an 
open source system emulator rather soon.  I'd much rather that he sell 
out to the collective of his users rather then to some faceless 
corporate overlord who will make us all use a vmware clone, rather then 
an open source project I've become somewhat fond of.

        -=- James Mastros