[devel at bb.net] Plugin licenses

[Pierre Tardy]

Hi Sveto,

Buildbot is GPLv2, which means derived work has to be compatible with GPLv2.

This means to me that any Buildbot plugin when used with Buildbot is
automatically GPLv2.

When possible for new code, we choose more permissive license aka MIT, this
allows or code which do not interact with Buildbot to be reused in non GPL
programs.
Frankly I am not even sure that this is legally right.

So if you are making buildbot plugins they are GPLv2. Your master.cfg is
GPLv2 and any other python programs or library which would import buildbot
code.
I find this annoying, but changing this will require every contributor to
buildbot from the last 10 years to sign for a change. That would be very
big work.

However, GPLv2 means that you cannot distribute buildbot + your plugins in
binary form without providing a mean for your users to get source code for
buildbot and your plugins.

If you keep your Buildbot and plugins for you, you don't need to publish
them in any form.

Of course, this is my understanding, and do not constitute a legal advice.
To be sure, you would need to talk to a Layer.

Pierre

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 8:34 AM Sveto Krchnavy <sveto70 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi.
>
> I have question about licensing. Buildbot itself is licensed under GPLv2,
> so modifications of buildbot have to be GPLv2.
> Licensing of plugins is not clear enough. I found that for
> example buildbot_travis that has MIT license (changed from Apache2
> license). Is there any limitation in licensing of plugins? Is a proprietary
> license allowed to be used?
>
> Thanks.
> Best regards.
> Sveto,
> _______________________________________________
> devel mailing list
> devel at buildbot.net
> https://lists.buildbot.net/mailman/listinfo/devel
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