In general, you have to comply with all the terms of all the software inside the VM. For a Linux distro like the System VM, that means meeting the GPL requirements from the kernel and operating system tools in particular. This means that any time you distribute a binary, you need to make all the source code available at the same time. (Or you can give recipients a written guarantee to provide the source code on demand, which is a pain -- it's easiest just to make it available at the same time.)
In our case, our official release will be source code, and all that has to be Apache-licensed, so all we can do is release the build scripts under the Apache license. We can't distribute the source code for GPL software from Apache servers. We could additionally distribute "convenience" binaries, to save people the effort of building their own System VM. These can't come from Apache servers, but we could do it from a separate service (e.g. SourceForge). If we do that, then at the same time we need to host all the source code for all the included GPL components. Cheers, Ewan. > -----Original Message----- > From: Frank Zhang [mailto:frank.zh...@citrix.com] > Sent: 20 July 2012 14:07 > To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org > Subject: RE: [DISCUSS] SystemVMs > > Question about license. > What's license for system vm itself as it's actually a linux > distribution? > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: David Nalley [mailto:da...@gnsa.us] > > Sent: Friday, July 20, 2012 1:56 PM > > To: cloudstack-dev@incubator.apache.org > > Subject: [DISCUSS] SystemVMs > > > > So the final OSCON discussion: > > > > We discussed SystemVMs, how they are created. > > > > What we should/must do: > > Have a documented way for folks to create the system VMs from source. > > (I think we already have this to a degree, but we should review it) > Ensure > > that all of the CloudStack pieces of the system VMs are ASLv2 > licensed. > > > > What we possibly could do: > > Prepare a system VM as we distribute it now as a convenience binary > (again > > we'd need to get permission for this from legal@.) We'd also likely > need to > > take advantage of the Sourceforge.net mirror system, much like > > OpenOffice.org > > > > Thoughts, comments, flames? > > > > --David
