On Wed, Dec 14, 2016 at 10:54:16AM +0100, Norman Feske wrote:
Dear community,
with the upcoming release 17.02, we are planning to change Genode's open-source license.
Fascinating!
For this reason, we intend to add a linking clause to Genode's version of the AGPL license text, similar to the classpath linking exception but restricted to software licenses that are blessed by the Open-Source Initiative, the Free Software Foundation, or Genode Labs.
Sounds good.
Inspired from the text of the classpath linking exception, our clause would look as follows:
Linking Genode code statically or dynamically with other modules is making a combined work based on Genode. Thus, the terms and conditions of the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3) cover the whole combination.
The AGPLv3 also talks about use of the software over a network service, and I imagine with the focus on IPC and proxying it might be better to clarify this usage too as a combined work. Unless all this doesn't apply to IPC?
With Genode becoming AGPLv3, we face the question of how to integrate 3rd-party code (like GPLv2-licensed Linux device drivers) in a Genode component. To address this concern, Genode-specific glue code that is needed to integrate the 3rd-party code with the Genode API ("system library") will have a license that is compatible with both the license of the 3rd-party code and Genode's AGPLv3 as such glue code is a derivative of both Genode and the incorporated code, e.g., the MIT license. In line with the wording of the exception clause above, when distributing binaries of such components, the licenses of both Genode and the incorporated 3rd-party code must be respected.
This sounds a bit sketch. Could you elaborate more on how this works?
Best regards Norman
Cheers, Jookia.