[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[spdawson at gmail.com]

From: Simon Dawson <simond@trainfx.com>

The barebox license should be "GPLv2 with exceptions", and not GPLv2.

Signed-off-by: Simon Dawson <simond@trainfx.com>
---
 v2: Changed license information as suggested on mailing list.

 boot/barebox/barebox.mk |    2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/boot/barebox/barebox.mk b/boot/barebox/barebox.mk
index 9550cdc..ee84831 100644
--- a/boot/barebox/barebox.mk
+++ b/boot/barebox/barebox.mk
@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ BAREBOX_SOURCE = barebox-$(BAREBOX_VERSION).tar.bz2
 BAREBOX_SITE = http://www.barebox.org/download/
 endif
 
-BAREBOX_LICENSE = GPLv2
+BAREBOX_LICENSE = GPLv2 with exceptions
 BAREBOX_LICENSE_FILES = COPYING
 
 ifneq ($(call qstrip,$(BR2_TARGET_BAREBOX_CUSTOM_PATCH_DIR)),)
-- 
1.7.9.5

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Luca Ceresoli]

spdawson at gmail.com wrote:
> From: Simon Dawson <simond@trainfx.com>
>
> The barebox license should be "GPLv2 with exceptions", and not GPLv2.
>
> Signed-off-by: Simon Dawson <simond@trainfx.com>
> ---
>   v2: Changed license information as suggested on mailing list.
>
>   boot/barebox/barebox.mk |    2 +-
>   1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)
>
> diff --git a/boot/barebox/barebox.mk b/boot/barebox/barebox.mk
> index 9550cdc..ee84831 100644
> --- a/boot/barebox/barebox.mk
> +++ b/boot/barebox/barebox.mk
> @@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ BAREBOX_SOURCE = barebox-$(BAREBOX_VERSION).tar.bz2
>   BAREBOX_SITE = http://www.barebox.org/download/
>   endif
>   
> -BAREBOX_LICENSE = GPLv2
> +BAREBOX_LICENSE = GPLv2 with exceptions
>   BAREBOX_LICENSE_FILES = COPYING
>   
>   ifneq ($(call qstrip,$(BR2_TARGET_BAREBOX_CUSTOM_PATCH_DIR)),)

Acked-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>

Luca

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Le Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:19:47 +0100,
spdawson at gmail.com a ?crit :

> +BAREBOX_LICENSE = GPLv2 with exceptions
>  BAREBOX_LICENSE_FILES = COPYING

U-Boot has a similar exception, so shouldn't we be doing the same?

Also, uboot.mk mentions that the license is GPLv2+, but the U-Boot
COPYING file says:

  U-Boot is Free Software.  It is copyrighted by Wolfgang Denk and
many others who contributed code (see the actual source code for
details).  You can redistribute U-Boot and/or modify it under the
terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation.  Most of it can also be distributed,
at your option, under any later version of the GNU General Public
License -- see individual files for exceptions.

So I guess that formally speaking U-Boot is GPLv2 only, and not GPLv2+.

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 08/28/12 14:44, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Le Tue, 28 Aug 2012 08:19:47 +0100,
> spdawson at gmail.com a ?crit :
>
>> +BAREBOX_LICENSE = GPLv2 with exceptions
>>   BAREBOX_LICENSE_FILES = COPYING
>
> U-Boot has a similar exception, so shouldn't we be doing the same?
>
> Also, uboot.mk mentions that the license is GPLv2+, but the U-Boot
> COPYING file says:
>
>    U-Boot is Free Software.  It is copyrighted by Wolfgang Denk and
> many others who contributed code (see the actual source code for
> details).  You can redistribute U-Boot and/or modify it under the
> terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation.  Most of it can also be distributed,
> at your option, under any later version of the GNU General Public
> License -- see individual files for exceptions.
>
> So I guess that formally speaking U-Boot is GPLv2 only, and not GPLv2+.

  Given the large number of special cases we've encountered in the licensing
support, I propose that we require one or two Acks on all licensing patches.
And for new packages, the Acks should explicitly mention that it Acks the
license information.  Failing the Acks, it could still be committed with
a flag that it needs review, e.g. "GPLv2+ (needs review)".

  I think for the legal-info, we should really be conservative. Now that it
exists, people will rely on it.  And if they rely on the wrong information,
they could be in trouble.

  OTOH, the trouble would probably just be from your own legal department...
Copyright holders who create complex, inconsistent licenses are very
unlikely to try to enforce them.  And also the FSFE and similar organisations
will just go for the obvious GPL violations.  So maybe I'm just being
unnecessarily paranoid here...

  Regards,
  Arnout
-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                               arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect                 +32-16-286540
Essensium/Mind                                     http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium                BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7CB5 E4CC 6C2E EFD4 6E3D A754 F963 ECAB 2450 2F1F

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Le Tue, 28 Aug 2012 19:48:08 +0200,
Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout@mind.be> a ?crit :

> > Also, uboot.mk mentions that the license is GPLv2+, but the U-Boot
> > COPYING file says:
> >
> >    U-Boot is Free Software.  It is copyrighted by Wolfgang Denk and
> > many others who contributed code (see the actual source code for
> > details).  You can redistribute U-Boot and/or modify it under the
> > terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by
> > the Free Software Foundation.  Most of it can also be distributed,
> > at your option, under any later version of the GNU General Public
> > License -- see individual files for exceptions.
> >
> > So I guess that formally speaking U-Boot is GPLv2 only, and not GPLv2+.
> 
>   Given the large number of special cases we've encountered in the licensing
> support, I propose that we require one or two Acks on all licensing patches.
> And for new packages, the Acks should explicitly mention that it Acks the
> license information.  Failing the Acks, it could still be committed with
> a flag that it needs review, e.g. "GPLv2+ (needs review)".
> 
>   I think for the legal-info, we should really be conservative. Now that it
> exists, people will rely on it.  And if they rely on the wrong information,
> they could be in trouble.

Well, this means having to wait even more before being able to commit a
new package, I'm not sure I like to see more "bureaucracy" when it
comes to getting patches applied. Instead, getting things in movement
usually encourages people to react when something looks wrong. I.e, if
I had left out the barebox and u-boot patches from Simon, maybe nobody
would have commented on them... The fact that I took action by
committing them got the discussion started, we fixed the problems, and
we're good.

>   OTOH, the trouble would probably just be from your own legal department...
> Copyright holders who create complex, inconsistent licenses are very
> unlikely to try to enforce them.  And also the FSFE and similar organisations
> will just go for the obvious GPL violations.  So maybe I'm just being
> unnecessarily paranoid here...

Just like we don't provide any guarantees of the proper functioning of
Buildroot, we don't provide any guarantees of the correctness of the
license information. Now, of course, it's up to us as a community to
ensure that Buildroot works fine (it builds what you need) and has the
most correct licensing information as possible, but we're not trying to
provide 100% guarantees here.

"Linux is evolution, not intelligent design" :-)

Thomas
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, Free Electrons
Kernel, drivers, real-time and embedded Linux
development, consulting, training and support.
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Arnout Vandecappelle]

On 08/28/12 22:54, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
> Le Tue, 28 Aug 2012 19:48:08 +0200,
> Arnout Vandecappelle<arnout@mind.be>  a ?crit :
>
>>> Also, uboot.mk mentions that the license is GPLv2+, but the U-Boot
>>> COPYING file says:
>>>
>>>     U-Boot is Free Software.  It is copyrighted by Wolfgang Denk and
>>> many others who contributed code (see the actual source code for
>>> details).  You can redistribute U-Boot and/or modify it under the
>>> terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by
>>> the Free Software Foundation.  Most of it can also be distributed,
>>> at your option, under any later version of the GNU General Public
>>> License -- see individual files for exceptions.
>>>
>>> So I guess that formally speaking U-Boot is GPLv2 only, and not GPLv2+.
>>
>>    Given the large number of special cases we've encountered in the licensing
>> support, I propose that we require one or two Acks on all licensing patches.
>> And for new packages, the Acks should explicitly mention that it Acks the
>> license information.  Failing the Acks, it could still be committed with
>> a flag that it needs review, e.g. "GPLv2+ (needs review)".
>>
>>    I think for the legal-info, we should really be conservative. Now that it
>> exists, people will rely on it.  And if they rely on the wrong information,
>> they could be in trouble.
>
> Well, this means having to wait even more before being able to commit a
> new package, I'm not sure I like to see more "bureaucracy" when it
> comes to getting patches applied. Instead, getting things in movement
> usually encourages people to react when something looks wrong. I.e, if
> I had left out the barebox and u-boot patches from Simon, maybe nobody
> would have commented on them... The fact that I took action by
> committing them got the discussion started, we fixed the problems, and
> we're good.

  That's why I say: commit it with (needs review).  That will attract more
reviews than having it either without legal-info, or with the wrong
legal-info.


>>    OTOH, the trouble would probably just be from your own legal department...
>> Copyright holders who create complex, inconsistent licenses are very
>> unlikely to try to enforce them.  And also the FSFE and similar organisations
>> will just go for the obvious GPL violations.  So maybe I'm just being
>> unnecessarily paranoid here...
>
> Just like we don't provide any guarantees of the proper functioning of
> Buildroot, we don't provide any guarantees of the correctness of the
> license information. Now, of course, it's up to us as a community to
> ensure that Buildroot works fine (it builds what you need) and has the
> most correct licensing information as possible, but we're not trying to
> provide 100% guarantees here.

  The difference is that buildroot users are likely to test the resulting
rootfs, but are very unlikely to look a second time at the output of
legal-info.  It's very difficult to "test" the legal-info - all you have
is "code review". For me, the wrong information in legal-info is an order
of magnitude worse than no legal-info at all.


  That said, none of my dozens of customers ever gave a whit about licenses.
The most they'd do is verify that there's no GPL linked against the app.
So after this post I'll shut up about it.


  Regards,
  Arnout

-- 
Arnout Vandecappelle                               arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect                 +32-16-286540
Essensium/Mind                                     http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium                BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
GPG fingerprint:  7CB5 E4CC 6C2E EFD4 6E3D A754 F963 ECAB 2450 2F1F

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Luca Ceresoli]

Arnout Vandecappelle wrote:
> On 08/28/12 22:54, Thomas Petazzoni wrote:
>> Le Tue, 28 Aug 2012 19:48:08 +0200,
>> Arnout Vandecappelle<arnout@mind.be>  a ?crit :
>>
>>>> Also, uboot.mk mentions that the license is GPLv2+, but the U-Boot
>>>> COPYING file says:
>>>>
>>>>     U-Boot is Free Software.  It is copyrighted by Wolfgang Denk and
>>>> many others who contributed code (see the actual source code for
>>>> details).  You can redistribute U-Boot and/or modify it under the
>>>> terms of version 2 of the GNU General Public License as published by
>>>> the Free Software Foundation.  Most of it can also be distributed,
>>>> at your option, under any later version of the GNU General Public
>>>> License -- see individual files for exceptions.
>>>>
>>>> So I guess that formally speaking U-Boot is GPLv2 only, and not 
>>>> GPLv2+.
>>>
>>>    Given the large number of special cases we've encountered in the 
>>> licensing
>>> support, I propose that we require one or two Acks on all licensing 
>>> patches.
>>> And for new packages, the Acks should explicitly mention that it 
>>> Acks the
>>> license information.  Failing the Acks, it could still be committed 
>>> with
>>> a flag that it needs review, e.g. "GPLv2+ (needs review)".
>>>
>>>    I think for the legal-info, we should really be conservative. Now 
>>> that it
>>> exists, people will rely on it.  And if they rely on the wrong 
>>> information,
>>> they could be in trouble.
>>
>> Well, this means having to wait even more before being able to commit a
>> new package, I'm not sure I like to see more "bureaucracy" when it
>> comes to getting patches applied. Instead, getting things in movement
>> usually encourages people to react when something looks wrong. I.e, if
>> I had left out the barebox and u-boot patches from Simon, maybe nobody
>> would have commented on them... The fact that I took action by
>> committing them got the discussion started, we fixed the problems, and
>> we're good.
>
>  That's why I say: commit it with (needs review).  That will attract more
> reviews than having it either without legal-info, or with the wrong
> legal-info.
>
>
>>>    OTOH, the trouble would probably just be from your own legal 
>>> department...
>>> Copyright holders who create complex, inconsistent licenses are very
>>> unlikely to try to enforce them.  And also the FSFE and similar 
>>> organisations
>>> will just go for the obvious GPL violations.  So maybe I'm just being
>>> unnecessarily paranoid here...
>>
>> Just like we don't provide any guarantees of the proper functioning of
>> Buildroot, we don't provide any guarantees of the correctness of the
>> license information. Now, of course, it's up to us as a community to
>> ensure that Buildroot works fine (it builds what you need) and has the
>> most correct licensing information as possible, but we're not trying to
>> provide 100% guarantees here.
>
>  The difference is that buildroot users are likely to test the resulting
> rootfs, but are very unlikely to look a second time at the output of
> legal-info.  It's very difficult to "test" the legal-info - all you have
> is "code review". For me, the wrong information in legal-info is an order
> of magnitude worse than no legal-info at all.

I agree with Arnout here. If a feature is buggy, a user wanting to use it
will probably be bitten by the bug and report it.

If a license is buggy, or even worse, if a user knows license definitions
are not trustworthy, he will have to check them one by one, just as if they
were not defined at all in BR. The whole legal-info would thus loose most of
its usefulness.

These weeks my spare time is close to zero, but I do review license info
patches as soon as I can. It takes 2 minutes in simple cases, 15 when
things are complex, so it is definitely a little effort.

Luca

[Buildroot] [PATCH v2] barebox: fix license information

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "spdawson" == spdawson  <spdawson@gmail.com> writes:

 spdawson> From: Simon Dawson <simond@trainfx.com>
 spdawson> The barebox license should be "GPLv2 with exceptions", and not GPLv2.

Committed, thanks.

-- 
Bye, Peter Korsgaard