On 07/08/2015 04:01 AM, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 08, 2015 at 12:26:56PM +0530, Devesh Sharma wrote:
>> We (Emulex/Avago) were lobbied by the Open-Fabrics Alliance (OFA) to
>> change the licensing from just GPLv2 to a dual GPLv2/BSD license.
>> They would prefer the elements in the OFED stack all be dual licensed.
>> We're trying to move to this position.
>
> And many kernel people would prefer to not have this. Can you try to
> identify the persons who are doing this harmful lobbying on behalf of
> them?
If I recall correctly, it's in the OFA bylaws that everyone who is part
of the OFA agrees to publish their code under both GPL and BSD licenses.
The OFA stack is used on more than just linux (there is a WinOFED for
example, although there is an entirely different kernel driver for all
of the hardware on Windows so this kernel code is not used there) and on
more than just client computers (think embedded OS on switches, but they
use the entire linux kernel, not just the drivers here, and so must
abide by the GPL). In practice, I'm pretty sure the dual license of the
kernel code is more or less meaningless. They need to comply with the
OFA bylaws, but because of the way GPL requirements play out and the
fact that this code only works as part of the linux kernel, it's only
ever in use in GPL situations. It's really the user space code where
people wanted the BSD option. I presume that makes distribution of
things like a binary WinOFED easier.
--
Doug Ledford <dledford@xxxxxxxxxx>
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