Re: [PATCHv2] recipe licenses: update recipe LICENSE fields

[Koen Kooi <k.kooi@student.utwente.nl>]

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On 11-10-10 20:14, Maupin, Chase wrote:
> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: openembedded-devel-bounces@lists.openembedded.org
>> [mailto:openembedded-devel-bounces@lists.openembedded.org] On Behalf Of
>> Frans Meulenbroeks
>> Sent: Monday, October 11, 2010 12:41 PM
>> To: openembedded-devel@lists.openembedded.org
>> Subject: Re: [oe] [PATCHv2] recipe licenses: update recipe LICENSE fields
>>
>> 2010/10/11 Chase Maupin <chasemaupin03@gmail.com>:
>>> * While verifying the licensing for the packages I am building
>>>  into my file system I found that for some packages the
>>>  LICENSE value set in the recipe was either incorrect or
>>>  generic and not detailed enough.  This patch is my attempt
>>>  to update the LICENSE fields for these packages to match
>>>  the actual versions of the licenses in the sources.
>>>
>>
>> [...]
>>
>>> -LICENSE = "GPLv2"
>>> +LICENSE = "GPLv2+"
>>
>> Doe we want this?
>> I think most GPLv2 code carries the clause:
>>
>> "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
>> modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
>> as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
>> of the License, or (at your option) any later version."
>>
>> Yet currently virtually all of these have GPL or GPLv2 as LICENSE
> 
> Frans,
> 
> My original version of this patch was just changing GPL to GPLv2 for example.  But I was asked about whether it should be GPLv2+ which I guess is more indicative of the "or later" clause.  Does anyone have good guidance here on how to denote things that are GPLv2 only for now (like git which Linux has a note in the COPYING file about it being GPLv2) and things that are GPLv2 or later version?  I'm trying for consistency here but I guess there doesn't seem to be a set policy for how the LICENSE field should be set.

The current policy is:

GPLv1 -> GPL version 1
GPLv1+ -> GPL version 1 or later
GPLv2 -> GPL version 2
GPLv2+ -> GPL version 2 or later
GPLv3 -> GPL version 3
GPLv3+ -> GPL version 3 or later

This was done to make it immediately clear which GPL license it's using
so you can decide to drop GPLv2+ and GPLv3 from your manifest if you
want secure boot or enforce patents.

regards,

Koen
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