Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

[devzero]

> On Thu, 30 October 2008 11:54:57 +0100, devzero@web.de wrote:
> > 
> > i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the kernel.
> > 
> > for me, 
> > 
> > find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU General Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the License|distributed in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR"
> > 
> > gives a file sized ~3.5M
> > 
> > That`s more than 1% of the kernel source.
> 
> Scary, isn't it?

iŽm not really scared, but it`s a really impressing amount. :)

> One of the problems is that corporate lawyers require the full GPL
> preample in any source file.  As a result, a lot of developers inside
> companies cannot publish code without it.  Whether that makes any sense
> is anyone's guess.  But it doesn't cause much harm either, so better
> leave the bloat where it is.

i feared something like that.

so, if it`s not just a common bad habit to add those lines again and again 
but  something being forced by lawyers - it would indeed not being worth
the effort to adress this, as you would need to review and discuss every 
single file containing those lines....

thanks for feedback

roland

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Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

[Bodo Eggert]

Pavel Machek <pavel@suse.cz> wrote:
> On Thu 2008-10-30 11:54:57, devzero@web.de wrote:

>> i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the kernel.
>> 
>> for me,
>> 
>> find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU General
>> Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the License|distributed
>> in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR"
>> 
>> gives a file sized ~3.5M
> 
> Now gzip it :-).

Now multiply it by the number of users.

Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

[devzero]

> devzero@web.de wrote:
> > hi,
> > 
> > i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the
> > kernel.
> > 
> > for me,
> > 
> > find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU
> > General Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the
> > License|distributed in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A
> > PARTICULAR"
> > 
> > gives a file sized ~3.5M
> > 
> > That`s more than 1% of the kernel source.
> > 
> > What about the idea to shorten that licening information to a minimum
> > , e.g. by shrinking that to a single, catchy line ,  linking to a
> > special licensing file like COPYING or linking to the FSF website ?
> > 
> > please no flames, i know this idea could be pure dynamite for some
> > people - but i thought 3.5M is worth this mail.
> > 
> > regards roland
> > 
> > ps: i`m not sure if that has been discussed already, but i didn`t
> > find that in the archive. please ignore, otherwise.
> 
> It may be 3.5 MB uncompressed, but disk space is cheap, and repeated 
> strings compress extremely well to save bandwidth.  If you work with the 
> kernel source enough for this to be an issue, you should use git. 
> You'll download these license headers once, and never again unless the 
> copyright info gets changed by a patch.  From a technical perspective, 
> the problem isn't nearly as bad as it looks, and it keeps the lawyers 
> happy, so it's really not worth messing with.  There's plenty of 
> lower-hanging fruit in unifying drivers for similar hardware, unifying 
> 32-bit and 64-bit architectures, and other things that make the code 
> more maintainable.
> 
> -- Chris
> 

yes, convinced - itŽs not worth the work to clean that up.
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how much license information inside the kernel ?

[devzero]

hi, 

i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the kernel.

for me, 

find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU General Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the License|distributed in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR"

gives a file sized ~3.5M

That`s more than 1% of the kernel source.

What about the idea to shorten that licening information to a minimum , e.g. by shrinking that to a single, catchy line ,  linking to a special licensing file like COPYING or linking to the FSF website ?

please no flames, i know this idea could be pure dynamite for some people - but i thought 3.5M is worth this mail.

regards
roland

ps:
i`m not sure if that has been discussed already, but i didn`t find that in the archive. please ignore, otherwise.
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Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

[Jörn Engel]

On Thu, 30 October 2008 11:54:57 +0100, devzero@web.de wrote:
> 
> i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the kernel.
> 
> for me, 
> 
> find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU General Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the License|distributed in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR"
> 
> gives a file sized ~3.5M
> 
> That`s more than 1% of the kernel source.

Scary, isn't it?

One of the problems is that corporate lawyers require the full GPL
preample in any source file.  As a result, a lot of developers inside
companies cannot publish code without it.  Whether that makes any sense
is anyone's guess.  But it doesn't cause much harm either, so better
leave the bloat where it is.

Jörn

-- 
Time? What's that? Time is only worth what you do with it.
-- Theo de Raadt

Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

[Chris Snook]

devzero@web.de wrote:
> hi,
> 
> i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the
> kernel.
> 
> for me,
> 
> find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU
> General Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the
> License|distributed in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A
> PARTICULAR"
> 
> gives a file sized ~3.5M
> 
> That`s more than 1% of the kernel source.
> 
> What about the idea to shorten that licening information to a minimum
> , e.g. by shrinking that to a single, catchy line ,  linking to a
> special licensing file like COPYING or linking to the FSF website ?
> 
> please no flames, i know this idea could be pure dynamite for some
> people - but i thought 3.5M is worth this mail.
> 
> regards roland
> 
> ps: i`m not sure if that has been discussed already, but i didn`t
> find that in the archive. please ignore, otherwise.

It may be 3.5 MB uncompressed, but disk space is cheap, and repeated 
strings compress extremely well to save bandwidth.  If you work with the 
kernel source enough for this to be an issue, you should use git. 
You'll download these license headers once, and never again unless the 
copyright info gets changed by a patch.  From a technical perspective, 
the problem isn't nearly as bad as it looks, and it keeps the lawyers 
happy, so it's really not worth messing with.  There's plenty of 
lower-hanging fruit in unifying drivers for similar hardware, unifying 
32-bit and 64-bit architectures, and other things that make the code 
more maintainable.

-- Chris

Re: how much license information inside the kernel ?

[Pavel Machek]

On Thu 2008-10-30 11:54:57, devzero@web.de wrote:
> hi, 
> 
> i found that there is a LOT of repeating licensing information in the kernel.
> 
> for me, 
> 
> find ./linux-2.6.27 -type f -exec cat {} \; |egrep "free software|GNU General Public License|Free Software Foundation|version 2 of the License|distributed in the hope|WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY|FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR"
> 
> gives a file sized ~3.5M

Now gzip it :-).

									Pavel
-- 
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html