On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 6:26 PM, Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 06:19:25PM -0700, Feng Kan wrote:
>> Hi Greg:
>>
>> On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 5:50 PM, Greg KH <gregkh@xxxxxxx> wrote:
>> > On Thu, Jul 29, 2010 at 05:14:59PM -0700, Feng Kan wrote:
>> >> Hi Greg:
>> >>
>> >> We will change to a BSD 3 clause license header. Our legal counsel is
>> >> talking to Synopsis to make this change.
>> >
>> > Why BSD? You do realize what that means when combined within the body
>> > of the kernel, right?
>> >
>>
>> FKAN: We will shoot for a dual BSD/GPL license such as the one in the HP
>> Hil driver.
>
> What specific driver is this?
FKAN: this is driver/input/serio/hil_mlc.c and quite a number of others.
>
> And are you sure that all of the contributors to the code agree with
> this licensing change? Are you going to require contributors to
> dual-license their changes?
>
> If so, why keep it BSD, what does that get you?
FKAN: for one thing, to make it future proof on other submissions.
>
>> > Are you going to be expecting others to contribute back to the code
>> > under this license, or will you accept the fact that future
>> > contributions from the community will cause the license to change?
>
>
> You didn't answer this question, which is a very important one before I
> can accept this driver.
FKAN: Yes, all of the above. Our legal is working on that. I thought by default
GPL defines the above statement.
>
>> >> We will resubmit once this is in place. Please let me know if you have
>> >> any additional concerns.
>> >
>> > My main concern is that you, and everyone else involved in the driver,
>> > never considered the license of the code in the first place and expected
>> > the kernel community to accept it as-is, placing the problem on us.
>>
>> FKAN: Please don't think this is the case, we gone through this exercise
>> with Denx.
>
> What is "Denx"?
FKAN: U-Boot Denx.de
>
>> We had legal looking into the header before submission
>> to them and the kernel.
>
> Then what happened here? Just curious as to how the driver was public
> for so long before someone realized this.
>
FKAN: this was few years back. At the time we had the header changed
so it was BSD like to be accepted by Denx.
>> > What will be done in the future to prevent this from happening again?
>>
>> FKAN: agreed, once bitten .... :)
>
> That didn't answer the question :)
FKAN: we have a system of checks for every patch that goes out. I will send
out a guideline to all reviewer to make sure the header
follow kernel precedence.
Legal is quite aware of the issue now too.
>
> thanks,
>
> greg k-h
>
--
Feng Kan
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