[U-Boot] "All rights reserved" in drivers/mtd/nand/nand_util.c

[U-Boot] "All rights reserved" in drivers/mtd/nand/nand_util.c

[Scott Wood]

Hi Guido,

A while back you added nand_util.c to U-Boot, with a copyright statement 
  of "Copyright (C) 2006 by Weiss-Electronic GmbH.  All rights reserved."

At best the "All rights reserved" clause is meaningless, and at worst it 
is in conflict with the statement that the code is licensed under the 
GPL.  Wolfgang Denk has taken the latter interpretation, and is 
threatening to remove code from the repository that contains this phrase.

Are you authorized to remove the "All rights reserved" clause on behalf 
of Weiss-Electronic GmbH?  If so, please submit a patch doing so.  If 
not, and you can't find someone who can, it looks like we'll have to 
replace the code.

Thanks,
Scott

[U-Boot] "All rights reserved" in drivers/mtd/nand/nand_util.c

[Paulraj, Sandeep]

I don't think we received a patch.

How are we moving forward as this is required for the NAND driver to work.

Thanks,
Sandeep


> Hi Guido,
> 
> A while back you added nand_util.c to U-Boot, with a copyright statement
>   of "Copyright (C) 2006 by Weiss-Electronic GmbH.  All rights reserved."
> 
> At best the "All rights reserved" clause is meaningless, and at worst it
> is in conflict with the statement that the code is licensed under the
> GPL.  Wolfgang Denk has taken the latter interpretation, and is
> threatening to remove code from the repository that contains this phrase.
> 
> Are you authorized to remove the "All rights reserved" clause on behalf
> of Weiss-Electronic GmbH?  If so, please submit a patch doing so.  If
> not, and you can't find someone who can, it looks like we'll have to
> replace the code.
> 
> Thanks,
> Scott

[U-Boot] "All rights reserved" in drivers/mtd/nand/nand_util.c

[Scott Wood]

Paulraj, Sandeep wrote:
> I don't think we received a patch.
> 
> How are we moving forward as this is required for the NAND driver to work.

I guess we start rewriting it -- and/or try to find any upstream code Guido may 
have based it on.

-Scott

[U-Boot] "All rights reserved" in drivers/mtd/nand/nand_util.c

[Paulraj, Sandeep]

> 
> Paulraj, Sandeep wrote:
> > I don't think we received a patch.
> >
> > How are we moving forward as this is required for the NAND driver to
> work.
> 
> I guess we start rewriting it
1) What about all the necessary hooks to other parts of the NAND driver.
2) What about all the very valid commits and changes to this file in the last so many years. 
-- and/or try to find any upstream code
> Guido may
> have based it on.
You can associate parts of this file from U-boot 1.2.0(maybe even an earlier version) with the reference code mentioned in the file. The code referred to is from mtd-utils. I could not find any similarities between the current mtd utils code and the current sate of the file obviously due to point 2) I made above 
> 
> -Scott
> 
Frankly I am at a loss to figure out how somebody could rewrite a file and not use most of the code.

The company still exists! Maybe we write an e-mail to them!

[U-Boot] "All rights reserved" in drivers/mtd/nand/nand_util.c

[Scott Wood]

Paulraj, Sandeep wrote:
>> Paulraj, Sandeep wrote:
>>> I don't think we received a patch.
>>>
>>> How are we moving forward as this is required for the NAND driver to
>> work.
>>
>> I guess we start rewriting it
> 1) What about all the necessary hooks to other parts of the NAND driver.

I don't follow...

> 2) What about all the very valid commits and changes to this file in the last so many years. 

Any identifiable sections that are not derived from the original commit can 
presumably be kept, though determining the proper license status of contributed 
code without an explicit copyright statement[1] is fuzzy enough in the absence 
of a bad license being present on the file being contributed to.

[1] I don't trust signed-off-by; I imagine many use it without ever having read 
what it was supposed to mean in a different project, especially when git 
automates it with a simple flag.  That seems more likely to be a practical 
problem than "all rights reserved"...

> -- and/or try to find any upstream code
>> Guido may
>> have based it on.
 >
> You can associate parts of this file from U-boot 1.2.0(maybe even an earlier
> version) with the reference code mentioned in the file. The code referred to
> is from mtd-utils. I could not find any similarities between the current mtd
> utils code and the current sate of the file obviously due to point 2) I made
> above

> Frankly I am at a loss to figure out how somebody could rewrite a file and not use most of the code.
> 
> The company still exists! Maybe we write an e-mail to them!

Calm down...

I did write an e-mail to the person that submitted the code (it's the thread 
we're replying to) and claimed that copyright.  I assumed that would be the 
person with the best knowledge of whom to contact in that company.  If you want 
to find the right person to contact without his help, go ahead -- but that seems 
like more work to me than rewriting a relatively small chunk of code.

Especially since, as you note, big chunks of the file are not from that original 
commit, and what was in the original commit may have come from another upstream 
project.

-Scott