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

[Ian Campbell <Ian.Campbell@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 2012-06-12 at 17:29 +0100, Mihai DonÈu wrote:
> 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.

No, it isn't. There is no such licensing exception in the Linux kernel
for these drivers (if you think there is then please point to the
specific licensing terms).

This is murky territory and there are certainly people in the Linux
development community who believe that these drivers are also in
violation of the GPL and have publicly stated this on many occasions.

Again: You need to be talking to your lawyer, not us.

Ian.

> 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.
> 



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