Hello, On 11/2/19 11:25, Roland Hieber wrote: > On Fri, Feb 08, 2019 at 10:09:19AM +0100, Ahmad Fatoum wrote: >> >> >> On 8/2/19 09:59, Roland Hieber wrote: >>> On Fri, Feb 08, 2019 at 06:48:26AM +0100, Oleksij Rempel wrote: >>>> Hi Roland, >>>> >>>> please remove deprecated license headers in same patch. >>> >>> I decided to leave them to record the original author's intent. There >>> are several variations on the GPL headers in the project, the one >>> extreme is the full GPL license header including a warranty disclaimer, >>> but the other extreme is only a "GPLv2" and nothing more. We can decide >>> on the project level to apply the warranty disclaimer. But by removing >>> the license headers from individual files, the original author intent is >>> lost – maybe the didn't want to include the disclaimer, maybe they >>> didn't care, in any case it is not in our possibility to decide over >>> their copyright matters and for most of the cases it is too late to >>> track some of the people down and ask them. >>> >>> This all becomes important when someone forks our files to a new >>> project. And if that someone does not know what the SPDX license tags >>> actually mean, it's better to have the original documentation on the >>> file level. >>> >>> I noticed that Linux usually removes the license headers and only keeps >>> the copyright lines, but I wasn't able to find any reason for that. Do >>> you have more insight here? >> >> (Obligatory IANAL) > > (Me neither) > >> With the copyright, the author states their right to deal as they >> see fit with the source code. For example they may relicense. Replacing the >> copyright with a SPDX-License-Identifier won't preserve this information. > > That sounds like an argument for leaving the copyright headers in the > individual files? Yes, leave copyright/authorship lines, but replace license text with SPDX-License-Identifier. > >> The license itself grants rights to others and, if it's a standard one, >> could be referenced by the Identifier, while the full text is reproduced >> only once at some central location (see my LICENSES directory patch below). > > There are two parts involved when applying the GPL. One part is the GPL > itself, which is written by the FSF, and is the generic license granting > rights and duties to users of the program for works that are licensed > under the GPL. The second part is the actual copyright statement, which > is written by the author of the (respective part of the) code, and which > must mention that a source file is actually licensed under the GPL. > This part usually, but not always, also contains a warranty disclaimer. > Although that second part is pre-formulated in the appendix "How to > Apply These Terms to Your New Programs" of the GPL, it can be seen in my > patch that the copyright statement historically has several different > variants, ranging from "this is GPLv2" to the full text that is > recommended in the GPL appendix (and also in the GPL FAQ [1]). It is the > author's sole right to choose the exact conditions in the copyright > statement on the file level, and I think by reducing those license > headers to only the copyright line transgresses that right. And, as I > said, the full copyright statement also serves as a fallback in case the > file is copied to a project that does not use the full SPDX process. I > also doubt that a single "SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0" line would > be sufficient to imply everything that is written in the full copyright > statement for every possible user of the source code. > > I welcome your patch for adding the LICENSES/* files, but I don't think > it solved the problem mentioned above, as LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0 > also only contains the text of the generic GPL, and not the authors' > copyright statement. > > [faq]: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#NoticeInSourceFile > > - Roland > -- Pengutronix e.K. | | Industrial Linux Solutions | http://www.pengutronix.de/ | Peiner Str. 6-8, 31137 Hildesheim, Germany | Phone: +49-5121-206917-0 | Amtsgericht Hildesheim, HRA 2686 | Fax: +49-5121-206917-5555 | _______________________________________________ barebox mailing list barebox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.infradead.org/mailman/listinfo/barebox
