Re: [PATCH 5/9] s390: net: add SPDX identifiers to the remaining files

Heiko Carstens
2017-11-14T20:22:49Z

On Tue, Nov 14, 2017 at 06:38:04PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> It's good to have SPDX identifiers in all files to make it easier to
> audit the kernel tree for correct licenses.
>
> Update the drivers/s390/net/ files with the correct SPDX license
> identifier based on the license text in the file itself. The SPDX
> identifier is a legally binding shorthand, which can be used instead of
> the full boiler plate text.
>
> This work is based on a script and data from Thomas Gleixner, Philippe
> Ombredanne, and Kate Stewart.
>
> Cc: Julian Wiedmann <jwi@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> Cc: Ursula Braun <ubraun@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
> Cc: Martin Schwidefsky <schwidefsky@de.ibm.com>
> Cc: Heiko Carstens <heiko.carstens@de.ibm.com>
> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
> Cc: Kate Stewart <kstewart@linuxfoundation.org>
> Cc: Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@nexb.com>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
> ---
> diff --git a/drivers/s390/net/fsm.c b/drivers/s390/net/fsm.c
> index 8c14c6c3ad3d..f0c7c182b077 100644
> --- a/drivers/s390/net/fsm.c
> +++ b/drivers/s390/net/fsm.c
> @@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
>
> +// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> /**
> * A generic FSM based on fsm used in isdn4linux
> *

What's the rationale to add GPL-2.0 to this file? This seems to be a bit
confusing since this file has no explicit license template, except this
one:

MODULE_LICENSE("GPL");

Which, according to include/linux/module.h translates to
"GPL" [GNU Public License v2 or later]

On the other hand there are files like drivers/s390/char/zcore.c which just
contain a statement "License: GPL", which was converted to GPL-1.0+ (see
patch 4 of this series).
Right now I'm not saying that anything is wrong here, but I'd like to
understand the rationale.