libhal, udev, and libvolume_id - licensing??

[Kay Sievers]

On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 20:32, Gordon Schumacher <gordon at rebit.com> wrote:
> I am trying to decipher the licensing for libhal and libvolume_id, and
> so far I'm just getting confused...
>
> As far as I can tell, libvolume_id is part of the udev package.
> Everything I see indicates that udev is GPLv2... except Gentoo:
> http://gentoo-portage.com/dev-libs/libvolume_id

The license on that page is wrong, libvolume_id is not BSD, and never
was in the past.

> If I download their package, the source files say GPLv2, so I'm assuming
> they're wrong.  Okay, so I can safely assume for the moment that I am
> not allowed to link a non-GPL program against libvolume_id.

It's not LGPL or any less restrict license, so you are not allowed, that's true.

> So next is libhal... it lists udev as a dependency, so that makes it
> GPLv2 as well.  But wait...

Libhal does not link against libvolume_id, or udev.

> HAL is licensed to you under your choice of the Academic Free
> License version 2.1, or the GNU General Public License version 2.
> Both licenses are included here. Some individual source code files
> and/or binaries may be under the GPL only or under the LGPG.
>
> Each source code file is marked with the proper copyright information.
>
>
> Ahhh... help!  If hal is including GPLed source, how can it be
> dual-licensed??

The Linux code in the HAL daemon is GPL, so it makes the HAL daemon
GPL on Linux, other platforms have different licenses, as long as they
do not use the Linux code.

> My understanding is that you couldn't "un-GPL"
> something... and further, the FSF explicitly listst the AFL is
> GPL-incompatible, so now I'm *really* confused.

Sure, you can not un-GPL HAL's Linux code.

> Hopefully someone can help me sort this out!  I'm trying very hard to
> stay in the clear with all the licensing requirements - but right now I
> haven't the slightest idea whether it's legitimate for me to use libhal
> in a non-GPLed project or not; I would think that being the basic way to
> access hardware under Linux, it would be possible to use it in a
> non-GPLed application, but now I'm really unsure.

It should be fine to use it under the AFL 2.1, or GPL if you like.

Kay