Open Stack

On 01/14/2015 07:28 AM, Csaba Henk wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I hope I'm addressing the right list -- if not, please point
> me where it's appropriate.
> 
> We (Manila developers) plan to start a new side-project that would
> be hosted on Stackforge. It's tentatively named "Manila Image Project",
> although it would not necessarily be Manila specific.
>
> It's aim is to provide infrastructure for building custom VM images.

Before we even get to the specific licensing questions - can I ask why
you would not either use the existing tool diskimage-builder as it is or
join forces and add features if it does not meet your needs?

> So far so good.
> 
> What we are puzzled on is the license. This is something we have to
> figure out before we think of setting up the project. In general it's
> understood that Apache License (v2) is preferred. Question:
> is that a strict requirement on Stackforge or just a suggestion?
> 
> - Lot of related previous art are GPL/LGPL licensed in entirety or
>   partially so we have to know if can use them.
> 
> - Note that the image project is different from standard Openstack
>   related projects because it's a "meta-tool", like a compiler:
>   you don't deploy it on site, what you deploy is it's outcome
>   (a VM image).
> 
> - AFAIU #1: the VM image (the output of the tool) is considered to be
>   a distribution of all the sofware contained in it, which means that
>   an image builder has to comply with licensing of these software
>   individually, and patches that are applied on the sources might be
>   constrained in terms of licensing (if the source is covered by a
>   copyleft license). So it's not feasible to have a pure 
>   APLv2 image builder anyway. What licensing of the image builder
>   itself (ie. not the patches) has an impact on is the "scaffolding"
>   bundled with the image (init scripts, etc).
> 
> - AFAIU #2: the above concerns the one who would like to use and customize
>   the image builder; regarding the end user who just receives and deploys 
>   the image, and applies changes/updates to it from the distributor
>   of the image (if there is such a feature), the distributor is free
>   to specify the terms of usage, as long as the image is made of open
>   source software.
> 
> Please correct / clarify / debunk / confirm my ideas above, and
> explain what is implied wrt. / required for eligibility of Stackforge
> hosting.
> 
> Thanks,
> Csaba
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> OpenStack-Infra mailing list
> OpenStack-Infra at lists.openstack.org
> http://lists.openstack.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/openstack-infra
>