From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mx1.redhat.com (mx1.redhat.com [209.132.183.28]) by dpdk.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC0415588 for ; Thu, 1 Dec 2016 19:41:07 +0100 (CET) Received: from int-mx09.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (int-mx09.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com [10.5.11.22]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mx1.redhat.com (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 01512C04D2A4; Thu, 1 Dec 2016 18:41:07 +0000 (UTC) Received: from dhcp-41-137.bos.redhat.com (ovpn-116-212.phx2.redhat.com [10.3.116.212]) by int-mx09.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id uB1If4uH000452 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 1 Dec 2016 13:41:06 -0500 To: "O'Driscoll, Tim" , Michael Dolan , "moving@dpdk.org" References: <26FA93C7ED1EAA44AB77D62FBE1D27BA67626AEE@IRSMSX108.ger.corp.intel.com> <26FA93C7ED1EAA44AB77D62FBE1D27BA676277F4@IRSMSX108.ger.corp.intel.com> From: Dave Neary Message-ID: <58406EC0.7000904@redhat.com> Date: Thu, 1 Dec 2016 13:41:04 -0500 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.5.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: <26FA93C7ED1EAA44AB77D62FBE1D27BA676277F4@IRSMSX108.ger.corp.intel.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.68 on 10.5.11.22 X-Greylist: Sender IP whitelisted, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.5.16 (mx1.redhat.com [10.5.110.31]); Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:41:07 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [dpdk-moving] Minutes from "Moving DPDK to Linux Foundation" call, November 29th X-BeenThere: moving@dpdk.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 Precedence: list List-Id: DPDK community structure changes List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Dec 2016 18:41:08 -0000 Hi, On 12/01/2016 12:40 PM, O'Driscoll, Tim wrote: > Thanks Mike. I realise you can’t say too much in public about what is essentially a legal issue. > > To summarise, these are the options we seem to have: > > 1. Continue with BSD license and DCO: > Advantages: Easy (nothing changes). This combination has worked well for several years with many companies contributing to the project and deploying DPDK-based solutions. No CLA required. > Disadvantages: Some Linaro members may not be able to contribute and/or deploy DPDK-based solutions. > > 2. Use Apache 2 for new contributions: > Advantages: It’s a fairly easy change. Provides patent protection for new contributions. No CLA required. > Disadvantages: Doesn’t cover the existing DPDK code so the actual benefit of this is very small. > > 3. Use Apache 2 and re-license existing code: > Advantages: Patent protection for everything. No CLA required. > Disadvantage: We need to re-license everything. I suspect that’s a big effort and it will be very difficult to get agreement from everybody who's contributed. We would also need to consider DPDK code that’s dual-licensed. We have some code that’s dual BSD-GPLv2. IANAL, and I'm far from an expert on SW licensing, but I think Apache 2 is not compatible with GPLv2, so this might need to become Apache 2/GPLv3. This might be a smaller task that you might think. We get to 99%+ with 7-8 companies. Each company will probably want to do a patent review on code they are contributing to see what they are licensing (and this can be a lengthy task, but for some of the bigger participants, this may already be an ongoing activity, or an acceptable level of risk). You only need agreement from copyright holders, and it is entirely possible that most participants work for companies that retain the copyright to contributions. Still, these can be a pain and a drag on momentum. > Note that I’m assuming that the combination of Apache 2 and a CLA isn't an option because this seems redundant as both include patent protection. Maybe there are other reasons that would make this a valid combination though. The Apache Software Foundation requires CLAs with copyright assignment to the foundation for official Apache projects - this is to allow for future license changes (an Apache v3 license), and also reflects some of the difficulties of a 30 year old project (several of the original copyright holders are no longer with the project, or have died, and the succession rights for copyright materials can sometimes result in unfortunate conflicts between the estates and open source projects). > We do need to reach a conclusion on this and move forward. We should aim to resolve it at next week's meeting, so people should consider their position in advance of that. My vote would be for option 1. My preference is to minimise change. I have no strong preference between BSD + DCO and Apache v2. I would like to avoid a CLA. Regards, Dave. -- Dave Neary - NFV/SDN Community Strategy Open Source and Standards, Red Hat - http://community.redhat.com Ph: +1-978-399-2182 / Cell: +1-978-799-3338