Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] qemu: piix: PCI bridge ACPI hotplug support

[Paolo Bonzini]

Il 10/06/2013 21:03, Anthony Liguori ha scritto:
>>> I'm not really convinced that
>>> QEMU<->firmware is a GPL boundary because of how tightly the two are
>>> linked.
>>
>> Where has 'linked' in terms of the GPL ever been anything other than
>> actual executable linking?
> 
> I should not have even brought this up as it's not worth debating.  If
> you're curious, http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#MereAggregation

With the usual IANAL care, I think QOM would be much much more of a
legal grey area that passing ACPI tables.

If you pass ACPI tables, the ACPI tables are clearly part of QEMU, and
are almost as clearly "just data" for the BIOS.

But if you use QOM, you may start wondering if "the semantics of the
communication are intimate enough, exchanging complex internal data
structures".  Probably not, as it is a generic interface and there could
be in principle other consumers than the firmware, but still complex
enough that raising the issue is not moot.

Paolo