[Mesa-dev] [PATCH] ralloc: Omit detailed license information about talloc.

[Jose Fonseca]

----- Original Message -----
> On 05/09/2014 02:55 AM, jfonseca at vmware.com wrote:
> > From: José Fonseca <jfonseca at vmware.com>
> > 
> > That information misleads source code auditing tools to think that
> > ralloc itself is released under LGPL v3.
> > 
> > Instead, simply state talloc is not licensed under a permissive license.
> > ---
> >  src/glsl/ralloc.h | 7 +++----
> >  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)
> > 
> > diff --git a/src/glsl/ralloc.h b/src/glsl/ralloc.h
> > index 4581a7a..70f7d9c 100644
> > --- a/src/glsl/ralloc.h
> > +++ b/src/glsl/ralloc.h
> > @@ -38,10 +38,9 @@
> >   * Tridgell's talloc, but ralloc is an independent implementation
> >   * released under the MIT license and tuned for Mesa.
> >   *
> > - * The talloc implementation is available under the GNU Lesser
> > - * General Public License (GNU LGPL), version 3 or later. It is
> > - * more sophisticated than ralloc in that it includes reference
> > - * counting and debugging features. See:
> > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v1/url?u=http://talloc.samba.org/&k=oIvRg1%2BdGAgOoM1BIlLLqw%3D%3D%0A&r=NMr9uy2iTjWVixC0wOcYCWEIYhfo80qKwRgdodpoDzA%3D%0A&m=Ddp4HkJpnRWjHHxoLTKPDw6xut5vF8UDp7679tk5SSw%3D%0A&s=c5292659b3037aee70c5c382dc954a465c6032523078593eca87e5db94b44f23
> > + * The talloc implementation is not available under a permissive
> > + * license. It is more sophisticated than ralloc in that it includes
> 
> To avoid possible future flamewars about whether or not LGPL v3 is
> permissive, 

I didn't realize this was debatable.  http://opensource.org/faq#permissive and wikipedia defines permissive as non-copyleft, and LPGL as a copyleft.  It does say "weak copyleft" though. 

> maybe "The talloc implementation is not available under a
> license that is acceptable to the Mesa development community."  Not a
> big deal to me either way.

Thanks for your feedback.  I ended up just going with Kenneth's wording.  Feel free to tweak later.  To be honest I'm more concerned about lawyers than trolls.  Both tend to excel at argumentation, but one can always ignore a troll... :-)

Jose