[alsa-devel] License for UCM config files - re plumbers audio conf discussion.
During the plumbers audio conference we discussed changing the release cadence and packaging of the UCM config files. This was to separate them from the alsa-lib package and alsa-lib release cadence for easier and more timely distribution for Ubuntu, Fedora etc.
One thing that we did not cover was the UCM config file licence, if indeed there is a license for the UCM config files ? It's clear to me that the alsa-lib source and headers are LGPL, but does the LGPL also apply to the runtime UCM config files ? LGPL is specifically designed for libraries so my understanding is that it's probably not applicable to the UCM runtime configuration files.
Here the LGPL definition of source code from alsa-lib COPYING :-
""Source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For a library, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the library."
Having a licence free or BSD/MIT type license for the UCM config repo would mean the configurations (or derivatives of) could also be used with Android.
IANAL
Liam
On Thu, 12 Jan 2017 12:01:29 +0100, Liam Girdwood wrote:
During the plumbers audio conference we discussed changing the release cadence and packaging of the UCM config files. This was to separate them from the alsa-lib package and alsa-lib release cadence for easier and more timely distribution for Ubuntu, Fedora etc.
One thing that we did not cover was the UCM config file licence, if indeed there is a license for the UCM config files ? It's clear to me that the alsa-lib source and headers are LGPL, but does the LGPL also apply to the runtime UCM config files ? LGPL is specifically designed for libraries so my understanding is that it's probably not applicable to the UCM runtime configuration files.
Here the LGPL definition of source code from alsa-lib COPYING :-
""Source code" for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For a library, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the library."
Having a licence free or BSD/MIT type license for the UCM config repo would mean the configurations (or derivatives of) could also be used with Android.
IANAL
Liam
IANAL, too, but releasing the collection of configs with a relaxed license sounds like a good idea to me.
Takashi
On Thu, Jan 12, 2017 at 11:01:29AM +0000, Liam Girdwood wrote:
One thing that we did not cover was the UCM config file licence, if indeed there is a license for the UCM config files ? It's clear to me that the alsa-lib source and headers are LGPL, but does the LGPL also apply to the runtime UCM config files ? LGPL is specifically designed for libraries so my understanding is that it's probably not applicable to the UCM runtime configuration files.
Even if it's not a *sensible* license in the absence of anything else it's going to apply unless things aren't copyrightable at all (and even there people might not want to take the risk that someone will argue). Relicensing under something like three clause BSD does seem to make sense though.
participants (3)
-
Liam Girdwood -
Mark Brown -
Takashi Iwai