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Wireshark-dev: Re: [Wireshark-dev] Some questions about licensing/core

From: Jaap Keuter <jaap.keuter@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 22:43:06 +0100
Hi,

Congratulations with your first dissector.
Now indeed it's time to look into what you can do with it. As you correctly noticed Wireshark is GPL licensed. That means that software that uses an API in this software falls under this license. That means (in short) that source code has to be provided for the object code which is distributed. Dissectors (plugins or not) use the Wireshark
APIs, so are subject to the GPL.

For the second part is good to know that a plugin dissector is nothing more than a dissector with a well defined plugin interface. Strip away this interface and you'll end up with a bare dissector, which can easily integrate into the core. README.developer
should point you in the right direction.
The preference for build in dissectors comes from the fact that it makes life for the core developers easier. If you want to keep the dissector for yourself, then by all means keep it as plugin. If you want to contribute it to the general repository you
may get the request to convert it.

Thanks,
Jaap




On Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:12:19 +0100, Teto wrote:

Hi there,

After having asked many questions on that mailing-list, I finally
succeeded in programming my plugin (still a lot to do but yet it works
as it is now) and starts wondering about licensing. Wireshark is GPL.
From what I understand it means that any work based on wireshark must
be GPL (if you want to redistribute it and contrary to FreeBSD for
example). Just to make sure, does that include plugins as well ?

I remember having read that plugins would best go into the core. Is
that a lot of work translating a plugin into the core ? I mean right
now a plugin is enough for me but if it's best and easy to make it
native, I can do it.

Once more, thanks for your reactivity over the past 2 months.

Matt