Re: [PATCH v2 04/10] net: ethernet: 8390: Replace GPL boilerplate with SPDX identifier

Richard Fontana
2023-05-12T13:03:48Z

On Fri, May 12, 2023 at 6:07 AM Bagas Sanjaya <bagasdotme@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Replace GPL boilerplate notice on remaining files with appropriate SPDX
> tag. For files mentioning COPYING, use GPL 2.0; otherwise GPL 1.0+.

> diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne2k-pci.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne2k-pci.c
> index 6a0a2039600a0a..ea3488e81c5f3c 100644
> --- a/drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne2k-pci.c
> +++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/8390/ne2k-pci.c
> @@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
> +// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-1.0+
> /* A Linux device driver for PCI NE2000 clones.
> *
> * Authors and other copyright holders:
> @@ -6,13 +7,6 @@
> * Copyright 1993 assigned to the United States Government as represented
> * by the Director, National Security Agency.
> *
> - * This software may be used and distributed according to the terms of
> - * the GNU General Public License (GPL), incorporated herein by reference.
> - * Drivers based on or derived from this code fall under the GPL and must
> - * retain the authorship, copyright and license notice. This file is not
> - * a complete program and may only be used when the entire operating
> - * system is licensed under the GPL.

I don't think you should delete those last two sentences.

"Drivers based on or derived from this code fall under the GPL and must
retain the authorship, copyright and license notice."

The notice has:

* Authors and other copyright holders:
* 1992-2000 by Donald Becker, NE2000 core and various modifications.
* 1995-1998 by Paul Gortmaker, core modifications and PCI support.
* Copyright 1993 assigned to the United States Government as represented
* by the Director, National Security Agency.

Nothing in the GPL requires retention of "authorship", as some other
licenses do (you can argue that GPLv2 conflates authorship with
copyright ownership, but this sentence seems to distinguish
"authorship" from "copyright" as does the listing of authors). There
is (arguably) a tradition of treating extra author attribution
requirements as legitimate, but if you view them as extra requirements
you can't, or shouldn't, just remove them arbitrarily.

Then there's this:

"This file is not a complete program and may only be used when the
entire operating system is licensed under the GPL."

Whether or not that's a correct statement of GPL interpretation
(perhaps it depends on the meaning of "entire operating system"), it's
significant enough as a nonstandard interpretive comment that I think
you should probably not remove it.

Richard