Open Stack

On Thu, May 19, 2016 at 03:58:11PM +0300, Pavlo Shchelokovskyy wrote:

> We are developing a new ansible-based deployment driver for Ironic [0] and
> would like to use some parts of ansible-lib Python API to avoid boilerplate
> code in custom Ansible modules and callbacks we are writing, and in the
> future probably use Ansible Python API to launch playbooks themselves.
> 
> The problem is Ansible and ansible-lib in particular are licensed under GPL
> v3 [1] "or later" [2]. According to [3] Apache 2.0 license is only one way
> compatible with GPL v3 (GPL v3-licensed code can include Apache
> 2.0-licensed code, but not vice versa).
> 
> I am by far not a legal expert, so my questions are:
> 
> Does it mean that the moment I do "from ansible import ..." in my Python
> code, which AFAIU means I am "linking" to it, I am required to use a
> GPLv3-compliant license for my code too (in particular not Apache 2.0)?
> What problems might that imply in respect with including such code in an
> OpenStack project (e.g. submitting it to Ironic repo) and distributing the
> project?
> If there are indeed problems with that, would it be safer to keep the code
> in a separate project and also distribute it separately?
> Even when distributed separately, will merely using (dynamically importing
> at run-time) a GPLv3-licensed driver from ApacheV2-licensed Ironic
> constitute any license violation?

Without addressing the actual substance of your legal questions, are
they addressed for purposes of OpenStack policy by
https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/LegalIssuesFAQ#Licensing_of_library_dependencies
and http://governance.openstack.org/reference/licensing.html ?

Richard