Re: [Xen-devel] [PATCH v4 02/21] acpi: Prevent GPL-only code from seeping into non-GPL binaries

[Boris Ostrovsky <boris.ostrovsky@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On 09/20/2016 06:14 AM, Ian Jackson wrote:
> Boris Ostrovsky writes ("[PATCH v4 02/21] acpi: Prevent GPL-only code from 
> seeping into non-GPL binaries"):
>> Some code (specifically, introduced by commit 801d469ad ("[HVM] ACPI
>> support patch 3 of 4: ACPI _PRT table.")) has only been licensed under
>> GPLv2. We want to prevent this code from showing up in non-GPL
>> binaries which might become possible after we make ACPI builder code
>> available to users other than hvmloader.
>>
>> There are two pieces that we need to be careful about:
>> (1) A small piece of code in dsdt.asl that implements _PIC method
>> (2) A fragment of ASL generator in mk_dsdt.c that describes PCI
>>     interrupt routing.
>>
>> The cleanest way to deal with this seems to be taking generatedi ASL
>> chunk from (2), adding it to dsdt.asl and keeping dsdt.asl GPL-only.
> This approach leaves us with the whole of dsdt.asl declared to be
> GPLv2.  If you are trying to relicence it as LGPLv2.1 this is not a
> good idea.
>
> Using this approach, if at some later point we get the missing ack
> from Lenovo, we would have to redo the licence review for the whole of
> dsdt.asl.  We would also have to ask Oracle's permission to relicense
> bits of the build system etc. !
>
> At the very least we should operate separate inbound/outbound
> licensing for this one file.
>
> But as I wrote on IRC, I think it would also be best to split out
> _just the troublesome portions_ into their own files, and include them
> at build time.  That way we have file-by-file source licensing.

I must have misunderstood you then, I thought we were talking only about
excising code from mk_dsdt.c.

But yes, I can split dsdt.asl as well. Should we keep _S5 definition as
GPL-only?

Lenovo patch was

+/* Poweroff support - ties in with qemu emulation */

+    Name (\_S5, Package (0x04)
+    {
+        0x07,
+        0x07,
+        0x00,
+        0x00
+    })


and now it looks like

    /* _S3 and _S4 are in separate SSDTs */
    Name (\_S5, Package (0x04)
    {
        0x00,  /* PM1a_CNT.SLP_TYP */
        0x00,  /* PM1b_CNT.SLP_TYP */
        0x00,  /* reserved */
        0x00   /* reserved */
    })

My opinion is that using 0x7 would have been the original contribution
as the rest is is simply codifying what ACPI spec says. And since 0x7 is
no longer used we can re-license it together with the rest of dsdt.asl.


-boris


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