Add VFS-License-clarification.txt as discussed on the Team list.

Update WHATSNEW.txt with a copy for the next release.

Signed-off-by: Jeremy Allison <jra@samba.org>
Reviewed-by: Ralph Boehme <slow@samba.org>

Autobuild-User(master): Ralph Böhme <slow@samba.org>
Autobuild-Date(master): Thu Oct 22 15:34:54 UTC 2020 on sn-devel-184

1 files changed, 28 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/VFS-License-clarification.txt b/VFS-License-clarification.txt
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..6b67381cc20
--- /dev/null
+++ b/VFS-License-clarification.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
+A clarification of the GNU GPL License boundary within the Samba
+Virtual File System (VFS) layer.
+
+Samba is licensed under the GNU GPL. All code committed to the Samba
+project or creating a derived work 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 that are licensed under the GNU GPL then it is the view
+of the Samba Team that such third-party external libraries called from
+Samba VFS modules are not part of the Samba code and cannot be
+considered a derived work of Samba for the purposes of GNU GPL
+licensing. Thus such libraries are not required to be under the GNU
+GPL or a GNU GPL compatible license.