On 24 Mar 2023, Luis Chamberlain spake thusly: > On Fri, Mar 24, 2023 at 03:29:00PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote: >> Please put back the license bits that you removed, as it is not a good >> idea to remove that if the file does not have a SPDX entry at the very >> least. > > Nick, I've just dropped your series. Thanks, that's much easier than getting all those reverts in. (Presumably the bits taken by other people can all stay.) > Please only re-submit only for > files where the license is clear. The effort of clarifying licenses > on files where one doesn't have an SPDX tag is welcomed but can take > time and we'll need this anyway in the future to help later strive to > see if we can automatically generate the MODULE_LICENSE() from the > SPDX tags. For now, I have an alternative that might be acceptable. I did a bit of an audit and it's all a right mess (see below), with wild divergence even when SPDX is present, GPL versus -only or GPL-2.0+ apparently applied almost at random and some things being completely different (in some cases they were both committed simultaneously and were inconsistent from the moment the module was written). So many things are inconsistent that kallmodsyms would call a lot of things modules that really aren't: there is enough error that there probably be noticeable mistakes in quite a high percentage of kernels. But... for our purposes, we don't actually *mind* if non-modules list things like licenses inconsistently in two different places. Removing MODULE_LICENSE was a means, not an end. What we're actually interested in doing is removing .modinfo in things that can't possibly be modules, and since a .modinfo in a guaranteed-non-module is at best entirely useless I don't think anyone could reasonably be opposed to that end goal (though they might reasonably be unhappy about all the churn involved in getting there). They object to the removal of the visible MODULE_LICENSE() argument text string, not to the useless compile-time effect of a MODULE_LICENSE in a non-module. So how about, for the first three groups below (the groups where MODULE_LICENSE and SPDX are inconsistent, or where a SPDX simply doesn't exist), instead of removing the MODULE_LICENSE we replace it with an identical call to a new macro named perhaps NONMODULE_LICENSE(), which is defined in module.h as simply expanding to nothing, except possibly emitting a compile-time error if it's ever used in a module? This more clearly denotes what's going on, keeps the license string in the source file on a nearly identical line (for whatever purpose it serves), drops the spurious .modinfo that's causing trouble, and probably makes fewer people unhappy? (I'm probably missing something, but the only reason I can see for being unhappy with this change is if you think the actual text string MODULE_LICENSE has some sort of legal force that NONMODULE_LICENSE would not have. Speaking as a genuine non-lawyer, the only argument anyone could have for that would be customary use, I'd think; and in *that* case we can fix it without even changing the MODULE_LICENSE text string by introducing a #define at the top of each affected file which redefines MODULE_LICENSE() to nothing for that file. But that's ugly: I think I'd prefer NONMODULE_LICENSE().) ... does that seem more reasonable? Anyway, the audit of licenses in files touched by (the remainig files in) this series. Here are the instances that don't fit what seems to be the usual rule: arch/x86/crypto/blake2s-glue.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 OR MIT arch/x86/mm/debug_pagetables.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/bus/intel-ixp4xx-eb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/bus/qcom-ebi2.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/clk/clk-bm1880.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/firmware/broadcom/bcm47xx_nvram.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/firmware/imx/imx-scu.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/firmware/imx/scu-pd.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/irqchip/irq-mbigen.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/irqchip/irq-renesas-rzg2l.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/irqchip/irq-sl28cpld.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/pinctrl/mediatek/pinctrl-mt8188.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/mediatek/pinctrl-mt8365.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/renesas/pinctrl-rzv2m.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/power/reset/gpio-restart.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/power/reset/ltc2952-poweroff.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/power/supply/wm97xx_battery.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/reset/reset-lantiq.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/reset/reset-microchip-sparx5.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("Dual MIT/GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/reset/reset-mpfs.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/soc/apple/apple-pmgr-pwrstate.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only OR MIT drivers/soc/tegra/cbb/tegra194-cbb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/soc/tegra/cbb/tegra234-cbb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/tty/n_null.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/video/fbdev/vesafb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/xen/grant-dma-ops.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only fs/binfmt_elf.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only fs/nfs_common/nfs_ssc.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only kernel/dma/map_benchmark.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only kernel/events/hw_breakpoint_test.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 kernel/trace/rv/reactor_panic.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 kernel/trace/rv/reactor_printk.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 kernel/watch_queue.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 lib/btree.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only lib/crypto/blake2s-generic.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 OR MIT lib/crypto/blake2s.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 OR MIT mm/zpool.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only Here's the subset of that that isn't just GPL-versus-v2 mismatches, all MIT-versus-GPL in different directions: arch/x86/crypto/blake2s-glue.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 OR MIT drivers/reset/reset-microchip-sparx5.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("Dual MIT/GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/soc/apple/apple-pmgr-pwrstate.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only OR MIT lib/crypto/blake2s-generic.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 OR MIT lib/crypto/blake2s.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 OR MIT Here are the ones that don't have SPDX at all: drivers/bus/arm-cci.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: drivers/bus/imx-weim.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: drivers/bus/simple-pm-bus.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: drivers/gpu/drm/drm_mipi_dsi.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL and additional rights"); SPDX: drivers/reset/reset-axs10x.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: drivers/reset/reset-hsdk.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: drivers/video/console/vgacon.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: drivers/video/fbdev/asiliantfb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: drivers/video/fbdev/gbefb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: drivers/video/fbdev/imsttfb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: drivers/xen/xenbus/xenbus_probe.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: lib/glob.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("Dual MIT/GPL"); SPDX: Here are all the others (verified largely by eye, so there might be a few errors) -- the majority, but only just: crypto/asymmetric_keys/asymmetric_type.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/accessibility/braille/braille_console.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/amba/tegra-ahb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/android/binder.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/bus/arm-integrator-lm.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/bus/bt1-apb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/bus/bt1-axi.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/bus/qcom-ssc-block-bus.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/clk/microchip/clk-mpfs.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/clk/renesas/renesas-cpg-mssr.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/clk/renesas/rzg2l-cpg.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/clocksource/em_sti.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/clocksource/sh_cmt.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/clocksource/sh_mtu2.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/clocksource/sh_tmu.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/clocksource/timer-stm32-lp.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/clocksource/timer-tegra186.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/clocksource/timer-ti-dm.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/dma-buf/heaps/cma_heap.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/dma-buf/heaps/system_heap.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/dma-buf/udmabuf.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/dma/ep93xx_dma.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/dma/ipu/ipu_idmac.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/dma/mv_xor_v2.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/dma/sh/shdma-base.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/dma/stm32-dmamux.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/dma/stm32-mdma.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/edac/altera_edac.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/hwspinlock/hwspinlock_core.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/interconnect/core.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/iommu/sun50i-iommu.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("Dual BSD/GPL"); SPDX: (GPL-2.0-only OR BSD-2-Clause) drivers/irqchip/irq-al-fic.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/irqchip/irq-ls-scfg-msi.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/irqchip/irq-mchp-eic.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/irqchip/irq-mvebu-pic.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: drivers/irqchip/irq-renesas-intc-irqpin.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/irqchip/irq-renesas-irqc.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/irqchip/irq-renesas-rza1.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/irqchip/irq-ti-sci-inta.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/irqchip/irq-ti-sci-intr.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/mailbox/rockchip-mailbox.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/mfd/altera-sysmgr.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/nvmem/core.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/perf/apple_m1_cpu_pmu.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/phy/intel/phy-intel-lgm-combo.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/actions/pinctrl-s500.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/pinctrl/actions/pinctrl-s700.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/pinctrl/actions/pinctrl-s900.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/pinctrl/bcm/pinctrl-ns.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/mediatek/pinctrl-mt8192.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/nuvoton/pinctrl-npcm7xx.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/pinctrl-amd.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/pinctrl/renesas/pinctrl-rza1.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/renesas/pinctrl-rza2.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/renesas/pinctrl-rzg2l.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/pinctrl/renesas/pinctrl-rzn1.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/power/reset/as3722-poweroff.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/power/reset/gpio-poweroff.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/power/reset/keystone-reset.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/power/reset/mt6323-poweroff.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/power/reset/regulator-poweroff.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/power/reset/restart-poweroff.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/power/reset/tps65086-restart.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/power/supply/power_supply_core.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/regulator/stm32-pwr.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 drivers/remoteproc/remoteproc_core.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/soc/fujitsu/a64fx-diag.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/tty/serial/imx_earlycon.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/tty/serial/rda-uart.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0+ drivers/video/fbdev/mmp/hw/mmp_ctrl.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/video/fbdev/mmp/panel/tpo_tj032md01bw.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later drivers/video/fbdev/wm8505fb.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only drivers/video/fbdev/wmt_ge_rops.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-only fs/unicode/utf8-core.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 lib/pldmfw/pldmfw.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL v2"); SPDX: GPL-2.0 lib/test_fprobe.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later mm/zswap.c: ML: MODULE_LICENSE("GPL"); SPDX: GPL-2.0-or-later