Re: some ideas on guidelines

[Greg KH <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Sat, Aug 17, 2019 at 01:55:23PM -0600, J Lovejoy wrote:
> > #4   Where the file contains a license notice that clearly states
> > the file is licensed under “GPL” with no indication of version
> > number and no other license information whatsoever —> ADD SPDX
> > identifier for GPL-2.0-or-later Rationale: This is consistent with
> > the text of the license which states, “If the Program does not
> > specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version
> > ever published by the Free Software Foundation.” Because the Linux
> > kernel is well-known to be licensed under GPL-2.0-only and use of
> > GPL-1.0 is generally sparse, it within the options given in the
> > license text to choose GPL-2.0-or-later in this case. Doing so more
> > easily enables use of such files beyond the Linux kernel.
> 
> Please confirm that everyone agrees with this approach, in particular
> that we would leave the existing license notice in place and simply
> ADD the SPDX Identifier.

Sorry, I missed this one.  No, I do not agree with this as the kernel
has never been "2 or later" for the main license.  "2-only" should be
what is done here as that reflects the license of the kernel as a whole.

Also, I think we caught most of these files already that had this type
of marking, so I don't know if it's even an issue anymore, is it?

And no one except HURD is going to be trying to use Linux files in other
projects :)

thanks,

greg k-h