Re: Automake build system merge into mainline

[Colin Watson]

On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 04:31:14PM +0530, KESHAV P.R. wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 16:24, Colin Watson <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 03:40:42PM +0530, KESHAV P.R. wrote:
> >> I want btrfs support
> >> https://code.launchpad.net/~csurbhi/btrfs-grub2/btrfs-grub2 or
> >> grub-devel patches to be integrated into grub-extras for the time
> >> being,
> >
> > You can't just ignore legal issues like that.  We can't do this until
> > the legal issues are resolved.
> 
> I am sorry, but I am not well versed with all the legal issues
> concerning licenses. But that was the main reason you guys created
> grub-extras, because of licensing issues right. Thats also the reason
> why zfs is in grub-extras instead of being in the main repo, because
> of CDDL license.

No, this is completely untrue.

The purpose of grub-extras is not as you describe.  Rather, its purpose
is to contain code which is *licence-compatible* with GRUB but whose
*copyright* has not been assigned to the Free Software Foundation.  The
zfs module in grub-extras is licensed under the GPLv3, but some of its
copyright is held by Sun rather than by the FSF, and therefore it's in
grub-extras.  (I don't know the history of the zfs module in grub-extras
and how we arranged for it to be licensed under the GPLv3 rather than
under the CDDL, but that's what the licence notices on the code say.)

Surbhi's btrfs code contains portions which are copyrighted (variously)
by Oracle and Intel.  As such, it will need to live in grub-extras.
However, those portions are licensed under the GPLv2 without the "or (at
your option) any later version" text, which means that they cannot be
distributed as part of a combined work unless the work as a whole is
distributed under the terms of the GPLv2; GRUB plus anything from
grub-extras is clearly a combined work.  GRUB is distributed under the
GPLv3; although it's a different version of the same licence, its terms
are not the same.

We've discussed this situation with relevant developers from Oracle and
Intel, and they've indicated an informal willingness to permit that code
to be distributed under the terms of the GPLv3, which will resolve this.
Unfortunately, we have not yet got formal permission, and until we do we
can't distribute btrfs in grub-extras at all.

-- 
Colin Watson                                       address@hidden