Re: [Xenomai] [PULL] forge: Cleanup COPYING files

[Jan Kiszka <jan.kiszka@web.de>]

On 2013-10-13 12:08, Philippe Gerum wrote:
> On 10/11/2013 09:32 AM, Jan Kiszka wrote:
>> Hi Philippe,
>>
>> The following changes since commit
>> 926e0441446aae116bf5b0701753e4b87a5386a2:
>>
>>    doc: update installation guidelines (2013-10-04 15:46:23 +0200)
>>
>> are available in the git repository at:
>>
>>    git://git.xenomai.org/xenomai-jki.git for-forge
>>
>> for you to fetch changes up to f1559e40a39b1a54e0348732402a68eb0dfef0a4:
>>
>>    Rename include and lib copying files (2013-10-10 15:15:56 +0200)
>>
>> If you do not like COPYING.* renaming, just skip the second patch. The
>> first on is important as we currently have code that is formally under
>> no COPYING file.
>>
> 
> Thanks for the heads up. However, I disagree with both patches. GPL has
> never been our default license.

Where did we ever intentionally diverge from the pattern that everything
is GPL except those bits that need to be linked to or #included by
third-party programs? I strongly believe that this is a very reasonable
pattern, so I don't understand your disagreement here. And see below
what damage a missing default license can cause.

> The common rule for Xenomai is to state
> the licensing terms on a per-file basis, explicitly. When present, the
> COPYING files basically emphasize the fact that all files in the
> relevant directory and below share that license. In other words, not
> having COPYING file in some hierarchy does not mean that we have no
> license, it's most often right there into each individual files.

Sure, I don't disagree that each source file should state its license.
We should not merge any more files in the future that lack this.
However, often we like to reference a COPYING file with the full license
term, thus it should be reachable, ideally by walking up the directory tree.

Also, having duplicate, slightly diverging COPYING files in subtrees
where all files require the same license anyway is not very elegant as well.

> 
> The files which do not state any licensing terms in a way or another in
> -forge are as follows:
> 
> ./lib/boilerplate/tlsf/target.h
> ./utils/can/rtcansend.c
> ./utils/can/rtcanrecv.c
> ./utils/ps/rtps.c
> ./utils/analogy/wf_facilities.h
> ./utils/analogy/wf_facilities.c
> ./testsuite/*
> 
> The first one (target.h) is merely a build configuration file.
> $top_srcdir/testsuite/* should not default to GPL, although it's
> perfectly fine that contributors do state GPL licensing explicitly in
> such code if they wish to. The few others implementing small utilities
> are indeed lacking license information.
> 
> AFAICS, all other files state their license explicitly, or depend on a
> COPYING file present in the file hierarchy they belong to. If the file
> belongs to the kernel support, the additional requirement to have it
> GPLv2 compatible is even implicit per the linux kernel licensing terms,
> all of our kernel code abide by strictly.
> 
> At any rate, contributors may want to clarify licensing terms for the
> code they authored if need be.

If you say that we never had GPL as the default, this has to be
rephrased: Contributors, it is required to clarify the license of those
files that do not carry any explicit license reference. We otherwise
have to remove them from the source tree!

Jan

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