On Tue, Aug 09, 2016 at 09:09:07AM -0700, James Bottomley wrote: > On Tue, 2016-08-09 at 15:24 +0100, One Thousand Gnomes wrote: > > > table development go under copyleft-next, Rusty recently asked for > > > code to go in prior to the license tag being added denoting this > > > license as GPL-compatible [3] -- I had noted in the patch > > > submission which annotated copyleft-next's compatibility to GPLv2 > > > that copyleft-next is the license of choice for ongoing kernel > > > development on my end [4]. If this is objectionable I'm happy to > > > change it to GPLv2 however I'd like a reason provided as I've gone > > > through all possible channels to ensure this is kosher, including > > > vetting by 3 attorneys now, 2 at SUSE. > > > > You don't need a new tag, you can use "GPL" or "GPL and additional > > rights". In fact you don't want any other tag because when combined > > with the kernel it is GPLv2 anyway because the only way the two are > > fully compatible is for the kernel community to license the derived > > work under the GPL. > > This is the module tag ... it says what licence the module is under, > not the licence for the module combined with the kernel, which is > always GPLv2 because the stricter licence rules. As per Linus' recommendations [0] if I add a module I'll be using MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") if using copyleft-next. Either way this series didn't add a module yet so no need for that yet, but it does use copyleft-next in headers / C code. [0] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/CA+55aFyhxcvD+q7tp+-yrSFDKfR0mOHgyEAe=f_94aKLsOu0Og@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx > However, if I > want my binary only modules to be combined with Linux, I have to follow > GPLv2 compliance because GPLv2 becomes the ruling licence of the > combination. The same would apply to this copyleft-next, even after 15 > years. And this what really matters here. > The US copyright office defines a copyright work as anything which is > "an original work of authorship fixed in any tangible medium of > expression". That means any change to an existing work (i.e. by a > patch) which contains enough originality to make the changed work > distinct from the old work is ipso facto a new work. under copyright > -next this new work has a sunset 15 years from its creation by > combination, not 15 years from the original. This means a constantly > updated work never sunsets. Sure, you can go back 15 years and claim > the code at that time has passed into the public domain but you can't > do that if you also want the benefit of later changes. Agreed. Luis -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ia64" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
![]() |