[Xen-devel] libxenvchan license (lGPLv2.1) and xen/include/public/COPYING license?

[Konrad Rzeszutek Wilk <konrad.wilk@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hey!

I picked the list of people on this email from the git log on 
tools/misc/libvchan/
(albeit this is about xen/include/public/io/libxenvchan.h).

The problem is that the 'COPYING' file in the root directory of Xen source 
says:

"                                                                               
   
Licensing Exceptions (the relaxed BSD-style license)                            
   
----------------------------------------------------                            
   
                                                                                
   
For the convenience of users and those who are porting OSes to run as           
   
Xen guests, certain files in this repository are not subject to the             
   
GPL when distributed separately or included in software packages                
   
outside this repository."

The libxenvchan.h header file is an Lesser GPLv2.1. Which would
imply that one could ignore the giant @section LICENSE in the libxenvchan.h
and treat it as non-GPL...

But to make the matters more complicated the ./COPYING files continues
with:

"Instead we specify a much more relaxed                    
BSD-style license. Affected files include the Xen interface headers             
   
(xen/include/public/COPYING), MiniOS (extras/mini-os) and various               
   
drivers, support functions and header files within Xen-aware Linux              
   
source trees.  In all such cases, license terms are stated at the top           
   
of the file or in a COPYING file in the same directory. Note that               
   
_any_ file that is modified and then distributed within a Linux kernel          
   
is still subject to the GNU GPL.                      "

Great, so if I break this up:

 a) "Xen interface headers (xen/include/public/COPYING),"
 b) "MiniOS (..) and various drivers,"
 c) "support functions and header files with Xen-aware Linux
     source trees."

Well, libxenvchan is a).

What?

Yes, if I look in xen/include/public/COPYING it says:

"
XEN NOTICE
==========

This copyright applies to all files within this subdirectory and its
subdirectories:
  include/public/*.h
  include/public/hvm/*.h
  include/public/io/*.h

The intention is that these files can be freely copied into the source
tree of an operating system when porting that OS to run on Xen. Doing
so does *not* cause the OS to become subject to the terms of the GPL
"

and libxenvchan.h is in ./xen/include/public/io/libxenvchan.h

Also it is in FreeBSD (source tree): ./sys/xen/interface/io/libxenvchan.h

That looks to be an oversigh. The commit that introduced the file is:
commit 1a16a3351ff2f2cf9f0cc0a27c89a0652eb8dfb4
Author: Daniel De Graaf <dgdegra@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date:   Thu Oct 6 19:44:40 2011 +0100

    libvchan: interdomain communications library

As such I was wondering if the folks who wrote/checked the file in
could weight in on what their intention was in regards to this file?

Thanks!

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