J Lovejoy wrote: >> On Jul 10, 2019, at 3:38 AM, Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> On Tue, Jul 09, 2019 at 10:28:59PM -0600, J Lovejoy wrote: >>> - the MODULE_LICENSE info was never meant to be definitive license >>> info, but seemingly more of an approximation. I’m wondering if >>> others have a different view? [...] >> MODULE_LICENSE predated SPDX by a decade or so, and was designed to >> solve a totally different use case. I would not try to mix the two, >> or infer one from the other. [...] > yes. And I can understand the different use case, I guess my concern/question > is does the existence of MODULE_LICENSE info that sort of contradicts > the actual license info for the file (when looking just at that file, > not the combined/resulting image) frustrate the goal of having clean licensing > info for when people run scans over the kernel? > > or maybe the answer is yes, in a strict scanning sense, but because > MODULE_LICENSE is used for a different purpose, so be it… scanners > are going to pick it up and people will just have to understand the above? > > mostly, I want to confirm that the SPDX identifier for a file in this case > can simply be: ISC (not BSD, or GPL) I think we should all agree that MODULE_LICENSE was never intended to actually record the exact license -- only to give some information on the "GPL-ness" of a module. The naming is unfortunate, but that's historical decisions for you and we have to live with it. Scanning tools should not rely on it (and its limited set of possible values) to determine actual licenses of modules not integrated in the kernel -- and an SPDX line with "ISC" (or whatever) should always be the determining input. Do we need to document this anywhere to be absolutely clear? -- zvr Intel Deutschland GmbH Registered Address: Am Campeon 10-12, 85579 Neubiberg, Germany Tel: +49 89 99 8853-0, www.intel.de Managing Directors: Christin Eisenschmid, Gary Kershaw Chairperson of the Supervisory Board: Nicole Lau Registered Office: Munich Commercial Register: Amtsgericht Muenchen HRB 186928
