Re: SPDX-License-Identifier

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Thu Feb 26 2015 - 16:50:03 EST


On Wed 2015-02-25 16:00:47, Felipe Balbi wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 25, 2015 at 10:49:51PM +0100, Pavel Machek wrote:
> > Hi!
> >
> > > > >Is one tag per directory sufficient? Is one tag per file sufficient?
> > > > >How about one tag per package? If package, then isn't a single tag for
> > > > >the whole kernel source tree sufficient, as we all know the overall
> > > > >license for the kernel source tree.
> > > >
> > > > We really need one tag per file.
> > >
> > > I fail to see the justification for this, why? Why not per directory?
> > > Why not per function? Why not per driver? Why not per line? Why not
> > > per project? Who has dictated this seemingly arbitrary rule?
> >
> > That's how licenses are done today.
> >
> > Why would I like to see SPDX?
> >
> > So that GPL header at begining of each file becomes one line... and so
> > that if it is BSD/GPL dual licensed is plain to see, and I don't have
> > to read the notices saying "oh this is gpl.. but if you want to,
> > delete gpl above and use license below".
>
> why isn't git grep -e 'MODULE_LICENSE' enough ? It's also a single line
> and gives you the license for that driver.
>
> > > Our DCO process ensures that.
> > >
> > > > - Some parts of the Linux source code are also used by other projects.
> > > > Or are derived from other projects. Because of this they are
> > > > explicitly licensed under different licenses than the GPLv2
> > > > (compatible to it though of course). Or are dual-licensed. So that
> > > > they can be used by these other projects.
> > >
> > > That's fine, we encourage that and want to see that happen. How will
> > > SPDX change that at all? It's obvious as to the license of the files
> > > that this happens with, why do anything extra?
> >
> > Well, sometimes parsing license agreements at the top of file is
> > interesting, that's where SPDX would help, and that's why having
> > single SPDX per linux kernel would not work.
>
> if you can parse SPDX, why can't you parse MODULE_LICENSE() ?

Not all sources are modules. And yes, MODULE_LICENSE() helps, but spdx
would help, too: This would become one line.

Pavel

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