[openstack-dev] [tc][kolla] Ansible module with GPLv3

Zane Bitter zbitter at redhat.com
Fri Nov 4 21:48:12 UTC 2016


On 04/11/16 12:51, Jeremy Stanley wrote:
> On 2016-11-04 11:42:25 -0500 (-0500), Michał Jastrzębski wrote:
> [...]
>> Kolla is licensed as Apache v2 all across the board today. To
>> implement one of highly requested features we would need to develop
>> so-called strategy plugin for ansible, and I can't see any reasonable
>> way to do it without touching GPL v3 code.
> [...]
>
> [I am not a lawyer.] We just discussed this in #openstack-infra as
> well. Since Kolla is shelling out to an Ansible executable, it's not
> likely to count as being a derivative work of Ansible. Consequently,
> the Kolla plug-in imported by Ansible being GPLv3 while shipped in
> the same repo as Apache License 2.0 Kolla source code would simply
> be aggregation of software under distinct licenses.

I agree that this would be an aggregation of software under distinct 
licenses, but one of those licenses is distinctly not allowed in 
OpenStack (we allow only ASLv2, MIT and BSD[1]). In fact IIUC anybody 
who tried to contribute a GPLv3 file would be inadvertently in breach of 
their CLA (the part where "You represent that you are legally entitled 
to grant the above license.").

> That said, it can't hurt to ask this again on
> legal-discuss at lists.openstack.org where it's much more on-topic.

Also replied there, but I'm mentioning here to make sure core reviewers 
are aware that they should -2 any patches containing GPL code with 
extreme prejudice.

(Note that this applies only to OpenStack-proper - i.e. repos listed in 
the governance repo as part of the big tent. OpenStack Infra is 
specifically excluded in the policy.)

cheers,
Zane.

[1] http://governance.openstack.org/reference/licensing.html



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