[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 0/2] Patch file clarification & Co

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 0/2] Patch file clarification & Co

[Luca Ceresoli]

Hi,

several Buildroot users reportedly asked details about how the patches
bundled with Buildroot are licensed.

Following the discussion during the latest Buildroot Developer Days,
this small series is aimed at clarifying patch licensing in the places
where it makes sense: COPYING, the manual and the legal-info output.

This v3 is a refinement of v2 based on the comments received.

The first two patches of v2 have been applied on master in the
meanwhile, and are not repeated here.

I also removed the last patch of v2 ("legal-info: explicitly state how
patches are licensed"): it will only makes sense after Yann's
improvements to save the patches in legal-info will be applied. When
this happens, I'll take care to resend it.


Luca Ceresoli (2):
  COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
  docs/manual: add section about patch licensing

 COPYING                      | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 docs/manual/legal-notice.txt | 17 +++++++++++++++--
 docs/manual/patch-policy.txt |  2 +-
 3 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

-- 
1.9.1

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 1/2] COPYING: add exception about patch licensing

[Luca Ceresoli]

Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches
provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.

Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>

---
Changes v2 -> v3:
 - Rewrite it entirely based on comments on the mailing list (Yann,
   Arnout, Thomas, Peter, Steve).

Changes v1 -> v2:
 - Rewrite it almost entirely (Arnout, Thomas).
---
 COPYING | 16 ++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)

diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
index d511905..0c018b0 100644
--- a/COPYING
+++ b/COPYING
@@ -1,3 +1,19 @@
+With the exceptions below, Buildroot is distributed under the terms of
+the GNU General Public License, reproduced below; either version 2 of
+the License, or (at your option) any later version.
+
+Some files in Buildroot contain a different license statement. Those
+files are licensed under the license contained in the file itself.
+
+Buildroot also bundles patch files, which are applied to the sources
+of the various packages. Those patches are not covered by the license
+of Buildroot. Instead, they are covered by the license of the software
+to which the patches are applied. When said software is available
+under multiple licenses, the Buildroot patches are only provided under
+the publicly accessible licenses.
+
+-----------------------------------------------------------------
+
 		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
 		       Version 2, June 1991
 
-- 
1.9.1

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 1/2] COPYING: add exception about patch licensing

[Thomas Petazzoni]

Dear Luca Ceresoli,

On Thu, 25 Feb 2016 12:51:14 +0100, Luca Ceresoli wrote:
> Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches
> provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
> Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
> Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
> Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
> Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
> Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>

Acked-by: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>

Thanks!
-- 
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
http://free-electrons.com

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 1/2] COPYING: add exception about patch licensing

[Yann E. MORIN]

Luca, All,

On 2016-02-25 12:51 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
> Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches
> provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
> Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
> Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
> Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
> Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
> Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>

Acked-by: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>

Thanks! :-)

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

> ---
> Changes v2 -> v3:
>  - Rewrite it entirely based on comments on the mailing list (Yann,
>    Arnout, Thomas, Peter, Steve).
> 
> Changes v1 -> v2:
>  - Rewrite it almost entirely (Arnout, Thomas).
> ---
>  COPYING | 16 ++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
> index d511905..0c018b0 100644
> --- a/COPYING
> +++ b/COPYING
> @@ -1,3 +1,19 @@
> +With the exceptions below, Buildroot is distributed under the terms of
> +the GNU General Public License, reproduced below; either version 2 of
> +the License, or (at your option) any later version.
> +
> +Some files in Buildroot contain a different license statement. Those
> +files are licensed under the license contained in the file itself.
> +
> +Buildroot also bundles patch files, which are applied to the sources
> +of the various packages. Those patches are not covered by the license
> +of Buildroot. Instead, they are covered by the license of the software
> +to which the patches are applied. When said software is available
> +under multiple licenses, the Buildroot patches are only provided under
> +the publicly accessible licenses.
> +
> +-----------------------------------------------------------------
> +
>  		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
>  		       Version 2, June 1991
>  
> -- 
> 1.9.1
> 

-- 
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------.
|  Yann E. MORIN  | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: |
| +33 662 376 056 | Software  Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN     |  ___               |
| +33 223 225 172 `------------.-------:  X  AGAINST      |  \e/  There is no  |
| http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/ | _/*\_ | / \ HTML MAIL    |   v   conspiracy.  |
'------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 1/2] COPYING: add exception about patch licensing

[Peter Korsgaard]

>>>>> "Luca" == Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net> writes:

 > Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches
 > provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.

 > Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
 > Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
 > Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
 > Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
 > Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
 > Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>

 > ---
 > Changes v2 -> v3:
 >  - Rewrite it entirely based on comments on the mailing list (Yann,
 >    Arnout, Thomas, Peter, Steve).

Committed, thanks.

-- 
Venlig hilsen,
Peter Korsgaard 

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 2/2] docs/manual: add section about patch licensing

[Luca Ceresoli]

Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>

---

Note: although there are only wording improvements since v2, I did not
carry the Acked-by from Thomas and Arnout because the topic is
delicate and Yann explicitly nacked the patch.

Changes v2 -> v3:
 - various wording improvements (Yann, Arnout).

Changes v1 -> v2:
 - "they modify" -> "they apply to" (Thomas).
---
 docs/manual/legal-notice.txt | 17 +++++++++++++++--
 docs/manual/patch-policy.txt |  2 +-
 2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/docs/manual/legal-notice.txt b/docs/manual/legal-notice.txt
index 0a91c37..6973cf5 100644
--- a/docs/manual/legal-notice.txt
+++ b/docs/manual/legal-notice.txt
@@ -134,11 +134,13 @@ Buildroot, with the name used in the manifest files:
   http://apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html[
   Apache License, version 2.0];
 
+[[legal-info-buildroot]]
 === Complying with the Buildroot license
 
 Buildroot itself is an open source software, released under the
-http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU General Public
-License, version 2] or (at your option) any later version.
+http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU General
+Public License, version 2] or (at your option) any later version, with
+the exception of the package patches detailed below.
 However, being a build system, it is not normally part of the end product:
 if you develop the root filesystem, kernel, bootloader or toolchain for a
 device, the code of Buildroot is only present on the development machine, not
@@ -159,3 +161,14 @@ material that must be redistributed.
 
 Keep in mind that this is only the Buildroot developers' opinion, and you
 should consult your legal department or lawyer in case of any doubt.
+
+==== Patches to packages
+
+Buildroot is bundled with a set of patches that are applied to
+packages to fix cross-compilation or other issues. See
+xref:patch-policy[] for the technical details.
+
+These patches are effectively a derived work of the package they are
+applied to, and so they are released under the same license as the
+software they apply to. They are not distributed under the Buildroot
+license.
diff --git a/docs/manual/patch-policy.txt b/docs/manual/patch-policy.txt
index d50c971..5a1fe4f 100644
--- a/docs/manual/patch-policy.txt
+++ b/docs/manual/patch-policy.txt
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ If something goes wrong in the steps _3_ or _4_, then the build fails.
 === Format and licensing of the package patches
 
 Patches are released under the same license as the software they apply
-to.
+to (see xref:legal-info-buildroot[]).
 
 A message explaining what the patch does, and why it is needed, should
 be added in the header commentary of the patch.
-- 
1.9.1

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 2/2] docs/manual: add section about patch licensing

[Yann E. MORIN]

Luca, All,

On 2016-02-25 12:51 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
> Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
> Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
> Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
> Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
> Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
> Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>
> 
> ---
> 
> Note: although there are only wording improvements since v2, I did not
> carry the Acked-by from Thomas and Arnout because the topic is
> delicate and Yann explicitly nacked the patch.

IIRC, I NAKed it because, in case of proprietary packages, the patches
can only be available under the FLOSS license of the package they are
applied to.

[--SNIP--]
> +==== Patches to packages
> +
> +Buildroot is bundled with a set of patches that are applied to
> +packages to fix cross-compilation or other issues. See
> +xref:patch-policy[] for the technical details.
> +
> +These patches are effectively a derived work of the package they are
> +applied to, and so they are released under the same license as the
> +software they apply to. They are not distributed under the Buildroot
> +license.

Why not repeat the same sentence as the one from the previous patch?

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

-- 
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------.
|  Yann E. MORIN  | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: |
| +33 662 376 056 | Software  Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN     |  ___               |
| +33 223 225 172 `------------.-------:  X  AGAINST      |  \e/  There is no  |
| http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/ | _/*\_ | / \ HTML MAIL    |   v   conspiracy.  |
'------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'

[Buildroot] [PATCH v3 2/2] docs/manual: add section about patch licensing

[Luca Ceresoli]

Dear Yann,

On 25/02/2016 21:16, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> Luca, All,
> 
> On 2016-02-25 12:51 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
>> Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca@lucaceresoli.net>
>> Cc: "Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>
>> Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <arnout@mind.be>
>> Cc: Peter Korsgaard <peter@korsgaard.com>
>> Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni@free-electrons.com>
>> Cc: Steve Calfee <stevecalfee@gmail.com>
>>
>> ---
>>
>> Note: although there are only wording improvements since v2, I did not
>> carry the Acked-by from Thomas and Arnout because the topic is
>> delicate and Yann explicitly nacked the patch.
> 
> IIRC, I NAKed it because, in case of proprietary packages, the patches
> can only be available under the FLOSS license of the package they are
> applied to.

Yup. I hurried to resend the previous patch (affecting COPYING) and
didn't quite address your comments on this one. Sorry about that, I did
it just now.

> 
> [--SNIP--]
>> +==== Patches to packages
>> +
>> +Buildroot is bundled with a set of patches that are applied to
>> +packages to fix cross-compilation or other issues. See
>> +xref:patch-policy[] for the technical details.
>> +
>> +These patches are effectively a derived work of the package they are
>> +applied to, and so they are released under the same license as the
>> +software they apply to. They are not distributed under the Buildroot
>> +license.
> 
> Why not repeat the same sentence as the one from the previous patch?

Because this is the manual, and I wanted it to be less legalese and more
humanese/hackerese... and I felt like explaining the reason ("patches
are effectively a derived work...").

But your suggestion is quite good, and it definitely ensures the manual
doesn't contradict COPYING! :) And actually they mostly state the same
things, only in a different order and with different wording.

Unless others suggest differently, I'll take your suggestion for v4.

-- 
Luca

-- 
Luca