Re: WTF? Re: [PATCH] License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license

From: Pavel Machek
Date: Wed Nov 22 2017 - 11:19:34 EST


On Tue 2017-11-07 14:15:26, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 07, 2017 at 06:46:58PM +0000, Alan Cox wrote:
> > > Given that it had no license text on it at all, it "defaults" to GPLv2,
> > > so the GPLv2 SPDX identifier was added to it.
> > >
> > > No copyright was changed, nothing at all happened except we explicitly
> > > list the license of the file, instead of it being "implicit" before.
> >
> > Well if Christoph owns the copyright (if there is one) and he has stated
> > he believes it is too trivial to copyright then it needs an SPDX tag that
> > indicates the rightsholder has stated it's too trivial to copyright and
> > (by estoppel) revoked any right they might have to pursue a claim.
>
> If Cristoph has revoked any right to pursue a claim, then he's also
> legally given up the right to complain if, say, Bradley Kuhn starting
> distributing a version with a GPLv3 permission statement --- or if Greg
> K-H adds a GPLv2 SPDX identifier. :-)

Yes, maybe Greg can legaly do that. That does not make it good
idea... and we have higher standards than "not illegal in most
countries" :-).

Pavel
--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html

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