[legal-discuss] [tc][kolla] Distribute Ansible module with Kolla

Monty Taylor mordred at inaugust.com
Tue Aug 1 13:18:12 UTC 2017


On 08/01/2017 02:45 AM, Thierry Carrez wrote:
> duonghq at vn.fujitsu.com wrote:
>> I'm looking for legal advice about distribute Ansible module within Kolla.
>> In order to implement one feature in Kolla, I need developing one
>> Ansible strategy plugin, which in turn need to include and inherit from
>> a couple of modules of Ansible. Kolla does not use the plugin directly,
>> Kolla will invoke Ansible (through popen) and Ansible uses this plugin.
>>
>> The question is, can I distribute this plugin along with Kolla-Ansible deliverable?
> 
> The answer will likely depend on the licensing of the modules your
> plugin will depend on. Could you give us a bit more details ?
> 
> The licensing requirements can be found here:
> https://governance.openstack.org/tc/reference/licensing.html
> 

Ansible plugins, such as strategy plugins, must be licensed GPL.

There is a specific licensing exemption in Ansible for *modules* - which 
are python-based content used in normal everyday Ansible usage.

If you need a strategy plugin, I'm going to suggest a few different 
things to consider:

a) Can kolla-ansible work without it? Or is it essential? If it can work 
without the strategy plugin and the strategy plugin just makes some 
things nicer, then you can put it in a different repo 
(kolla-ansible-nice-strategy-plugin or whatever), have that repo not be 
part of kolla's official deliverables, and write a document for kolla 
users as to how they can optionally install and configure the plugin.

b) Is it possibly a generally useful plugin? (Or could it be?) If so, 
then submitting it to upstream ansible for inclusion in the upstream 
strategy plugins would allow kolla to simply configure it to be used.

If, however, it is going to become required for kolla to work and it's 
not really a generally applicable strategy plugin, I think we'll need to 
have deeper discussions with the Foundation legal counsel about options.

Monty



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