trinity-devel@lists.pearsoncomputing.net

Message: previous - next
Month: September 2011

Re: [trinity-devel] Legal problem in kdeutils

From: "Timothy Pearson" <kb9vqf@...>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2011 12:21:29 -0500
> https://bugzilla.novell.com/show_bug.cgi?id=719453
>
> ksim and kgpg contains the GPL-2.0 files listed below. I can't immediately
> see
> from the spec file where the source code is compiled into but the spec
> file
> should definitely denote the package (or subpackage of applicable) as
> GPL-2.0.
>
> kdeutils-3.5.10/kgpg/conf_encryption.ui.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/kgpg/keyexport.ui.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/kgpg/kgpgrevokewidget.ui.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/kgpg/newkey.ui.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/ksim/monitors/lm_sensors/NVCtrl.c
> kdeutils-3.5.10/ksim/monitors/lm_sensors/NVCtrl.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/ksim/monitors/lm_sensors/nv_control.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/superkaramba/examples/taskBar/cleanbar/README
>
> Also, there are numerous header files in klaptopdaemon licensed under the
> MPL-1.0 (which is incompatible with the GPL-2.0). Please check if these
> files
> are used. If they are, we need to determine how we can resolve the GPL
> compatibility issue.
>
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/bulkmem.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/ciscode.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/cisreg.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/cistpl.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/cs.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/cs_types.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/driver_ops.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/ds.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/ftl.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/k_compat.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/mem_op.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/memory.h
> kdeutils-3.5.10/klaptopdaemon/linux/ss.h
>

At first glance these includes appear to be (modified?) Linux kernel
header files, which would have originally been licensed under the GPL.

See here for example:
Version in kdeutils:
http://websvn.kde.org/branches/trinity/kdeutils/klaptopdaemon/linux/driver_ops.h?revision=1054174&view=markup
Version in kernel:
http://joshua.raleigh.nc.us/docs/linux-2.4.10_html/208640.html

It looks like someone truncated the GPL portion of the license header,
possibly accidentally as this was over ten years ago.

Tim