Re: [Xen-devel] Hypervisor loadable modules and GPL licensing issues (Was: Re: memory introspection)

[Mihai DonÈu <mihai.dontu@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 12 Jun 2012 16:39:55 +0100 Ian Campbell wrote:
> I don't think we particularly want/need a module loader in the
> hypervisor, regardless of the license of the code which it is used to
> load.
> 

I see. OK. I will not insist on this.

> The legality of loading your non-GPL-compatible blob into the
> hypervisor is a question which only a lawyer can answer. You should
> not take legal advise from this mailing list.
> 
> My personal opinion is that it would not be acceptable to load non-GPL
> compatible code into the hypervisor via any mechanism, it is hard to
> see how any loadable module would not be a derived work of the
> hypervisor and therefore subject to the terms of the GPL.
> 

Taking GPL as is would have answered my initial question quickly, but
some projects (such as the Linux kernel) have opted to add explicit
licensing exceptions for certain functions. This is what allowed NVIDIA
and ATI (AMD) to provide drivers for their graphic cards on Linux.

Unfortunately the nature of rootkit targeted memory introspection
requires that it works very close to the hv. I would've loved to have
it in dom0 (based on VMItools or some extension of it) but I foresee a
lot of transitions from hv -> dom0 and back. Enough to slow everything
down to unbearable speeds.

-- 
Mihai DonÈu

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