On 03/12/2013 10:15 AM, Eric Blake wrote:
As far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with leaving the file as
BSD licensed instead of trying to insist that it be LGPL. The block
layer will still be [L]GPL because of other files linked together, but
there is nothing inherently wrong with linking a BSD file into an [L]GPL
product. In other words, if you are okay with keeping the existing
looser BSD license on this file only, it still won't change the license
of the overall block layer, and it would save you the hassle of tracking
down earlier authors to ask for a relicense.
Another alternative is to have two licenses covering appropriate
portions of the file. For example, aio-win32.c has two licenses: a
GPL2-only license for older history, and a GPLv2+ license for all new
changes. In your case, you might be able to write a license that states
that contents of code copied from other files is BSD, but all new
contributions are LGPLv2+.
But again, this is something where I suggest you get an official answer
from a maintainer, and not just opinions from a random reviewer,
regarding what approach you should take to licensing your code motion.