[Box Backup] Additional information for Volume Snapshot Service (Shadow Copy)

[Achim]

Hello list:

In my quest to contribute to solve one of the major tickets under Windows
[0], I managed to locate some code that was originally developed for rsync
3.0 [1] and seems to be pretty straightforward. 

The code referenced above was developed by Leen Besselink who in turn used
code from Elias Penttilä. I checked with both authors and both have given
their OK to reuse their code under the Box Backup license (see messages
below).

Chris, is this something that you would want to look at in order to add VSS
to Box Backup? The patch seems very simple to my untrained eye and could
probably be used in Box without too much modification, as it only adds the
function convert_to_vss_path() which creates a VSS copy for a given path
and returns the actual VSS path that can then be used to access the shadow
copy: all the magic is done within the VSS libraries. FYI, I tested the
process outlined in [1] to compile a VSS-aware copy of rsync, and it work
flawlessly. I just do not know where to include that capability in the Box
code.

Am I correct in assuming that the licensing mentioned below (with respect
to the GPL'ed Box Backup) should not be an issue with the BSD-style Box
license?

I hope this gives VSS another important push, in addition to the recent XP
license donated by Per Reedtz Thomsen.

Best regards, Achim

[0] http://www.boxbackup.org/trac/ticket/13
[1] http://www.consolejunky.net/cwrsync-vss/

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Re: rsync 3.0.x with Windows VSS-support]
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:51:37 +0300
From: Elias Penttilä
To: "Achim J. Latz"

Achim J. Latz wrote:

> Hello Elias:
> 
> As you can see from the messages included below, we are trying to use 
> some of your code in certain backup projects in order to offer VSS 
> capability.
> 
> Could you please indicate whether you are fine with re-licensing your 
> code under BSD-like and GPL licenses? According to Leen Besselink you 
> have not yet responded to his enquiries, so I would like to propose that 
> I take a non-answer in the next 14 days as a "green light", OK?
> 
> Thank you very much in advance, Achim

Sure, go ahead, I don't mind.

Do note that there was some discussion on the mailing list back in 2006 
about the compatibility of the rsync license and the VSS SDK license. I 
have no idea if that matters, but I myself took down the precompiled 
versions then.


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: rsync 3.0.x with Windows VSS-support
Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2009 20:40:10 +0200
From: Leen Besselink
To: Achim J. Latz

Achim J. Latz wrote:
> Hello Leen:
>

Hi Achim,

> I just found your excellent post on VSS under rsync (included below) on
> the BackupPC mailing list.
>
> This functionality and your very clear build instructions could also be
> a very valuable additional for another excellent free backup solution
> called Box Backup [0], as you can see from this open ticket [1]. The
> license for Box Backup is [2] BSD-like in spirit.
>
> I wanted to ask you if you would be willing to accept that license in
> order to include some of your code in Box Backup for the benefit of its
> users?
>

Most of the code is still from Elias Penttilä.

I've sent him an e-mail ones and got no reply. As I'm doing the same
thing as he was doing with it (integrating it with rsync), I didn't
think it could be a big problem for what I'm doing with it, without
his approval.

It could also be his code is partly from examples by Microsoft,
because there is example code available.

I personally wouldn't mind if you took some of the code, but I'm
not really the main contributor to it at the moment.

I guess I'm more of maintainer.

> Thank you very much in advance for your consideration, Achim
>
> [0] http://www.boxbackup.org/
> [1] http://www.boxbackup.org/trac/ticket/13
> [2] http://www.boxbackup.org/trac/wiki/BoxLicense