Bug #3515
license confusion in OsmoTRX
50%
Description
OsmoTRX is a fork of the OpenBTS transceiver. OpenBTS was licensed under AGPLv3-or-later by the FSF.
This is also what COPYING indicates, and what most source code files state.
However, I see the following deviations from this:- AUTHORS (we better remove that completely as we don't maintain it)
- CommonLibs/trx_vty.c where it is a mistake. Should be fixed.
- Transceiver52M/Transceiver.cpp (states GPLv3 even in upstream)
- Transceiver52M/Transceiver.h (states GPLv3 even in upstream)
As for the Transceiver.{h,cpp} it seems like an oversight by the original creators. However, as GPLv3 is compatible with AGPLv3, the entire work of osmo-trx consisting of GPLv3-or-later and AGPLv3-or-later becomes AGPLv3-or-later.
We could change Transceiver.{h,cpp} to AGPLv3-or-later to avoid confusion among users... however, this would then mean people couldn't merge any fixes we'd make back into OpenBTS as you can only import GPLv3-or-layer code in an AGPLv3-or-layer project, but not the other way around.
So let's keep Transceiver.* as-hs but fix trx_vty and remove AUTHORS.
History
#1 Updated by laforge about 1 month ago
- Priority changed from Low to High
lets get this done at some point not too distant. It was "low" prio 10 months ago, but given that this should hardly take an hour, let's try to close it soon, please.
#2 Updated by pespin 28 days ago
- Status changed from New to Feedback
- Assignee changed from pespin to laforge
- % Done changed from 0 to 50
I submitted patches here:
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14587 Remove AUTHORS file
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14588 trx_{vty,rate_ctr}: Set proper license AGPLv3+
I also found a lot of files are licensed as LGPLv2.1-or-later, what to do with those?
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/convert_neon.S
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/convert.c
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/convolve.c
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/scale.c
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/mult.c
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/scale_neon.S
Transceiver52M/arch/common/convert_base.c
Transceiver52M/arch/common/convolve_base.c
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/mult_neon.S
Transceiver52M/arch/arm/convolve_neon.S
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convert.c
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convert_sse_3.h
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convert_sse_3.c
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convolve_sse_3.c
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convert_sse_4_1.c
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convolve.c
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convert_sse_4_1.h
Transceiver52M/arch/x86/convolve_sse_3.h
Transceiver52M/Resampler.cpp
Transceiver52M/Resampler.h
Transceiver52M/osmo-trx.cpp
tests/CommonLibs/PRBSTest.cpp
debian/copyright
CommonLibs/PRBS.h
CommonLibs/Utils.h
CommonLibs/Utils.cpp
- Add SPDX tags to files: "SPDX-License-Identifier: AGPL-3.0+"
Re-assigning to laforge to check steps to proceed.
#3 Updated by laforge 4 days ago
- Status changed from Feedback to Stalled
- Assignee changed from laforge to pespin
pespin wrote:
I also found a lot of files are licensed as LGPLv2.1-or-later, what to do with those?
keep them as they are, possibly adding SPDX identifiers. LGPLv2.1-or-later is luckily compatible with AGPLv3-or-later
#4 Updated by pespin about 13 hours ago
- Status changed from Stalled to In Progress
I'm right now adding SPDX tags and fixing some small wrong bits in debian/copyright I found while looking at files.
I found file CommonLibs/PRBS.h to be LGPL-v2.1+ but not listed as such in debian/copyright. It seems to be owned by ipse , written in 2017. That file afaict seems to not be used at all in osmo-trx, only by tests/CommonLibs/PRBSTest.cpp. ipse can you confirm? If it's not used we can simply drop it from osmo-trx in order to shrink osmo-trx already convoluted code base, unless there's some plan to use it in the future...
#5 Updated by pespin about 13 hours ago
Related patches submitted:
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14888 debian/copyright: Remove non existent radioInterfaceDiversity.cpp from list
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14889 debian/copyright: Update wrong paths in license list
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14890 debian/copyright: Add missing file Utils.* to LGPL-2.1+ list
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14891 cosmetic: Fix trailing whitespace in several files
https://gerrit.osmocom.org/c/osmo-trx/+/14892 Add SPDX annotation
Assigning task to ipse so he can answer. Please re-assign to me once you do so.
