Updating Genode's license to AGPLv3 + open-source linking clause

[Jookia]

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.