License ?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 14:01 UTC (Thu) by meuh (guest, #22042)
Parent article: Ktap almost gets into 3.13

I'm also concerned about the licensing.

The homepage states "License GPL v2" so does the README, "ktap is licensed under GPL v2".

But ktap source code is a derivative of Lua code, which is covered by a MIT license

* This file is part of ktap by Jovi Zhangwei.
*
* Copyright (C) 2012-2013 Jovi Zhangwei <jovi.zhangwei@gmail.com>.
*
* Copyright (C) 1994-2013 Lua.org, PUC-Rio.
* - The part of code in this file is copied from lua initially.
* - lua's MIT license is compatible with GPL.
*
* ktap is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
* under the terms and conditions of the GNU General Public License,
* version 2, as published by the Free Software Foundation.

The Lua origin of code portion was noted by user engla in comment Loops to article Ktap — yet another kernel tracer.

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License ?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 15:05 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (3 responses)

What exactly is your concern here?

License ?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 16:12 UTC (Thu) by meuh (guest, #22042) [Link] (2 responses)

Is it misleading to state GPLv2 license ? Would be MIT/GPLv2 more accurate ?

I've understand that MIT and GPLv2 are compatible licenses,
but does MIT license allows one to re-license code under a different one, even compatible ?

License ?

Posted Nov 7, 2013 16:16 UTC (Thu) by rahulsundaram (subscriber, #21946) [Link] (1 responses)

Yes, it does. It is a very permissive license and the combination is under GPLv2. That is accurate.

License ?

Posted Nov 15, 2013 20:18 UTC (Fri) by Wol (subscriber, #4433) [Link]

No MIT does NOT allow you to relicence code ... no licence will unless it explicitly says you can.

But you can mix MIT and GPL and the result can only be distributed under the GPL. If, however, the recipient strips out the GPL code, they can redistribute the MIT-licenced stuff under the MIT licence.

When you mix code under different licences, you can't change any of the licences, and you have to comply with all of them. The magic of the GPL lies in the fact that it is explicitly incompatible with any licence that restricts it. In order to be compatible with the GPL, any other licence must let you do everything the GPL lets you do. So, in complying with the GPL, you comply with all the compatible licences as a matter of course.

Cheers,
Wol