VFS-License-clarification.txt

A clarification of our GNU GPL License enforcement boundary within the Samba
Virtual File System (VFS) layer.

Samba is licensed under the GNU GPL. All code committed to the Samba
project or that creates a "modified version" or software "based on" Samba must
be either licensed under the GNU GPL or a compatible license.

Samba has several plug-in interfaces where external code may be called
from Samba GNU GPL licensed code. The most important of these is the
Samba VFS layer.

Samba VFS modules are intimately connected by header files and API
definitions to the part of the Samba code that provides file services,
and as such, code that implements a plug-in Samba VFS module must be
licensed under the GNU GPL or a compatible license.

However, Samba VFS modules may themselves call third-party external
libraries that are not part of the Samba project and are externally
developed and maintained.

As long as these third-party external libraries do not use any of the
Samba internal structure, APIs or interface definitions created by the
Samba project (to the extent that they would be considered subject to the GNU
GPL), then the Samba Team will not consider such third-party external
libraries called from Samba VFS modules as "based on" and/or creating a
"modified version" of the Samba code for the purposes of GNU GPL.
Accordingly, we do not require such libraries be licensed under the GNU GPL
or a GNU GPL compatible license.