Please provide a GPL compatible license for headers

[jbkempf]

The provided headers are under Apache 2 and are therefore not usable from any LGPLv2.1 or GPLv2 project.

[rpavlik]

Does the Apache 2 + exception as used in Vulkan work for your needs?

[jbkempf]

Vulkan seems Apache2 only here:
https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Headers/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Loader/blob/master/LICENSE.txt

So, maybe, but as far as I can see, all Khronos is moving to Apache2, which makes all the recent projects unusable...

[rpavlik]

I mean the exception that's in the vulkan XML file - is this license notice OK?

https://github.com/KhronosGroup/Vulkan-Headers/blob/master/registry/vk.xml

I do understand what mean, that recent Khronos headers, etc. are under Apache 2 without an exception clause, so you literally cannot use them at all in any GPL2/LGPL2/LGPL2.1 software. (Been around open source a long time.) The exception was added to the Vulkan XML to allow projects with those licenses to use the API - but because the folks who spoke up were generating their own code from the XML rather than using the supplied/generated headers, only the XML got the exception. (If I understand correctly, anyway - I was not involved in the Vulkan WG when this went on.)

Personally, just applying it to the XML seems a little insufficient: there are many more projects that would consume headers directly rather than generate their own code from the XML. (If you agree with that, please file similar issues on the other projects so those groups know there is a demand!) I'd personally like to see the exception applied to all apache-2 licensed registry XML and API headers in Khronos standards, and for that to be the default going forward, but I need a bit of help making that case 😁

In the OpenXR case, I would propose applying that license not just to the XML, but also to the static and generated headers. (I am in the working group and want to know what actually would be good enough, so we don't bother to get voting and lawyers involved just to not actually fix the problem. Any license change like this is a good deal of work, though re-using the Vulkan text is much less work than any other option. I need evidence, not just my personal conviction, to convince others that such a change is worth the hassle and that it will solve the problem for a non-negligible subset of users. :D )

[jbkempf]

Yes, that would work totally.

I'd personally like to see the exception applied to all apache-2 licensed registry XML and API headers in Khronos standards, and for that to be the default going forward, but I need a bit of help making that case

The fact that this is not the default for all Khronos work is mind-blowing. Moving from MIT to Apache2 is a huge restriction... I don't get it.

[rpavlik]

I don't get it either, but I'm not a lawyer. Presumably the lawyers of the many Khronos decided for some reason it better served the interests of the group. Personally I would support the same default :) but that's just me speaking for myself.

Thanks for the feedback - am proposing exactly that. Hopefully it will get approved and I can push an update with it, though it will require some legal review so unfortunately it may take a while.

[oddhack]

We might eventually modify all the Apache 2-licensed files to incorporate the exception clause. Like all licensing decisions, it's a very slow process as something of that scope requires buy-in across all the working groups and companies in Khronos. In the meantime we're doing it on demand, and the only demand for Vulkan was on vk.xml.

[rpavlik]

I wanted to pop in and update that this is not forgotten and is still in progress, it just unfortunately didn't make it for 1.0.0.

This is issue 958: KHR:openxr/openxr#958

[jbkempf]

Any update on this?

[rpavlik]

I'll poke the right people to check what the status is - I've been wondering myself.

[oddhack]

I followed up at our recent F2F meeting and there is a planned vote at the October Board of Promoters meeting to let us move forward with using the Apache 2 + (L)GPL exception clause license broadly within Khronos. Hopefully this will be resolved within a month or so.

[GeekyGami]

Any word on this at the moment?