License
From ClusterLabs
Contents |
What Is Pacemaker's License?
Pacemaker programs are licensed under the GPLv2+ (version 2 or later of the GPL) and its headers and libraries are under the less restrictive LGPLv2+ (version 2 or later of the LGPL) .
The exception to this is a small number of files needed to create an OpenAIS/CoroSync plugin, these are additionally licensed under BSD. If you find any deviations from this policy, or wish to inquire about alternate licensing arrangements, please contact the project: pacemaker@oss.clusterlabs.org
The contents of this wiki are published under the terms of the GFDL unless otherwise indicated.
Common Licensing Questions
The following has been adapted from http://mercurial.selenic.com/wiki/License and (illustrating how complex the issues can be) can only be reproduced here under the terms of the GPLv2.
What does this mean to me?
If you don't distribute "derived works" of Pacemaker, you can do pretty much whatever you want with it and you can stop reading here.
Can I get a commercial license?
Pacemaker is Free Software. To use it for your commercial purposes, simply download it, install it, and enjoy. If you are interested in commercial support, see Support.
When does the license affect me?
If you do not distribute software that works with Pacemaker, you have no license obligations.
If you distribute software that does not modify, copy, or extend Pacemaker's source code and only calls Pacemaker's command line interface, you have no license obligations.
If you intend to distribute software that includes changes to Pacemaker's source code or directly calls Pacemaker's internals, your work may be considered a 'derived work' according to copyright law, and you will need to license your work under a compatible license. We're not lawyers, but this probably means making the source code available under version 2 (or later) of the GPL.
If in doubt, contact the project and/or someone skilled in such matters. We mostly just want to write good software.
What is a "derived work"?
What constitutes a "derived work" can only be precisely determined in a court of law. But conventional wisdom is that if you're modifying Pacemaker, copying or translating significant portions, adding plug-ins, or otherwise linking against its internal interfaces, odds are you're creating a derived work. Such derived works must themselves be licensed under a compatible license.
Depending on your exact circumstances, you might just want to take the easy way out and publish your "derived work" under the GPLv2+, but a lawyer might be able to suggest some alternatives.
