[collectd] VMware Guest SDK plugin for Collectd 5

[Keith Chambers]

You don't need to link against anything other than the Open VM Tools library.

I'm fine with licensing as GPL2.  You have my blessing.


I do recommend somebody does a proper code review.


Thank you,
Keith




----- Original Message -----
From: Sebastian Harl <sh at tokkee.org>
To: Keith Chambers <chambers_keith at yahoo.com>
Cc: "collectd at verplant.org" <collectd at verplant.org>
Sent: Friday, August 5, 2011 12:05 AM
Subject: Re: [collectd] VMware Guest SDK plugin for Collectd 5

Hi,

On Thu, Aug 04, 2011 at 06:21:20AM -0700, Keith Chambers wrote:
> I'm not a licensing expert either.  ;-)

While I'm not an expert, I guess I have a fair understanding of the
stuff ;-)

> vmGuestLib.h is part of the 'Open Virtual Machine Tools' hosted here:  http://sourceforge.net/projects/open-vm-tools/
> 
> This is the license displayed at the top of the vmGuestLib.h file.
> 
> 
>     /*********************************************************
>      * Copyright (C) 2003-2008 VMware, Inc. All rights reserved.
>      *
>      * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
>      * under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published
>      * by the Free Software Foundation version 2.1 and no later version.
>      *
>      * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
>      * WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY
>      * or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the Lesser GNU General Public
>      * License for more details.
>      *
>      * You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
>      * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc.,
>      * 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301 USA.
>      *
>      *********************************************************/
> 
> 
> Would it be possible to license this plugin with the standard Collectd GPL2 license?

Nice! As you noted yourself, this is the LGPL (2.1), which is perfectly
compatible to the GPL 2 (and 3). So there is no problem at all licensing
the plugin under the GPL.

Do you need to link the plugin against anything else but that library?
In that case, make sure that the other libs are GPL-compatible as well.
However, looking at the project website, all required stuff seems to be
available under GPL-compatible licenses (which is very surprisingly nice
imho :-)).

Cheers,
Sebastian

-- 
Sebastian "tokkee" Harl +++ GnuPG-ID: 0x8501C7FC +++ http://tokkee.org/

Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.         -- Benjamin Franklin