Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] s390x: Fix the confusing contributions-after-2012 license statements

[Cornelia Huck <cohuck@redhat.com>]

On Wed, 6 Feb 2019 14:09:40 +0100
Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com> wrote:

> On 2019-02-06 13:58, Cornelia Huck wrote:
> > On Wed,  6 Feb 2019 13:41:33 +0100
> > Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com> wrote:
> >   
> >> The license information in these files is rather confusing. The text
> >> declares LGPL first, but then says that contributions after 2012 are
> >> licensed under the GPL instead. How should the average user who just
> >> downloaded the release tarball know which part is now GPL and which
> >> is LGPL?  
> > 
> > FWIW, that statement was added in ccb084d3f0ec ("s390: new
> > contributions GPLv2 or later").
> >   
> >>
> >> Looking at the text of the LGPL (see COPYING.LIB in the top directory),
> >> the license clearly states how this should be done instead:
> >>
> >> "3. You may opt to apply the terms of the ordinary GNU General Public
> >>  License instead of this License to a given copy of the Library. To do
> >>  this, you must alter all the notices that refer to this License, so
> >>  that they refer to the ordinary GNU General Public License, version 2,
> >>  instead of to this License."  
> > 
> > Hm. This talks about GPL v2, not GPL v2-or-later...  
> 
> IANAL, but since all the files originally were licensed under
> LGPLv2-or-later, that should not be an issue, as far as I can see: You
> then could also upgrade the LGPLv2-or-later code to LGPLv3-or-later,
> which in turn allows you to license under GPLv3. So LGPLv2-or-later
> means you can put the code also under GPLv2-or-later. Or do I miss
> something?

That would seem logical, but IANAL, either...

Anyway, I'd be happy to queue this if I get acks :)