Re: treewide: License cleanup - RedHat originated

On Sun, May 22 2022 at  1:33P -0400,
Richard Fontana <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Sun, May 22, 2022 at 10:55 AM Thomas Gleixner <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > Richard!
> >
> > Sorry for pestering you, but the amount of files is just too much to split
> > it up and targetting the authors is difficult because quite some of them
> > are not longer at RHT. The files are all (c) RedHat or Sistina Software,
> > which is part of RedHat since 2003.
> >
> > This is part of the effort to clean up the licensing mess in the kernel and
> > convert it to SPDX license identifiers as the only source of license
> > information.
> >
> > Archaeology found the following unspecific GPL license references, which
> > have been authored by RedHat/Sistina.
> >
> > To clean this up, can you please either advise the RHT kernel team or let
> > me know which GPLv2 variant to use for the files and I run it through my
> > cleanup machinery.

Hi Thomas, yes I'd love for you to take on the changes to run through
your machinery.  I think we have consensus in that I agree with
everything Richard has said.  Proposed changes look good, thanks!

> Hi Thomas,
> 
> I assume you're selecting files that have some sort of Red Hat or
> Sistina copyright notice. Just as a disclaimer, I can't speak to
> copyrights in these files that may be held by other organizations or
> individuals (and I can't say definitively whether any file bearing a
> Red Hat or Sistina copyright notice has or retains any copyright owned
> by Red Hat). With that said:
> 
> > 1) this file is released under the gpl
> 
> I am fine with saying that any Red Hat copyrights (including any
> Sistina copyrights acquired by Red Hat) in these can be represented
> with SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0.
> 
> I would note that the following files did not seem to have any Red Hat
> or Sistina copyright notices:
> 
> >    drivers/md/dm-log-writes.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-ps-queue-length.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-ps-service-time.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-unstripe.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-zero.c

These can all have the following added:
SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0.

> Skipping category 2 for the moment:
> 
> > 3) (c) 2000 red hat gpl d
> 
> > 4) this code is covered by the gpl
> 
> > 5) this software may be freely redistributed under the terms of the gnu
> >    general public license you should have received a copy of the gnu general
> >    public license along with this program if not write to the free software
> >    foundation inc 675 mass ave cambridge ma 02139 usa
> 
> > 6) released under the general public license (gpl)
> 
> I am fine with saying that any Red Hat copyrights (including any
> Sistina copyrights acquired by Red Hat) in these can be represented
> with SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0.
> 
> > 2) this file is released under the lgpl
> >
> >    drivers/md/dm-core.h
> >    drivers/md/dm-log-userspace-base.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-log-userspace-transfer.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-log-userspace-transfer.h
> >    drivers/md/dm-log.c
> >    drivers/md/dm-rq.h
> >    drivers/md/dm.h
> >    include/linux/device-mapper.h
> >    include/linux/dm-dirty-log.h
> 
> For these, if the question is just about what version of the LGPL we
> should treat these as, I'd be fine with representing them as
> SDPX-License-Identifier: LGPL-2.1.
> 
> However, and I realize this may go beyond my 'remit' as someone
> consulted for linux-spdx stuff or open some additional bag of worms,
> I'm wondering if these would be better off just relicensed under
> GPLv2, and thus represented as SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0.

Yes, I think we should do that.

> Even treating this code as having been LGPLv2.x-licensed, this would be
> authorized or at any rate contemplated by the largely-overlooked
> LGPLv2.0/LGPLv2.1 section 3. Suggesting this because it would seem to
> help marginally with some of the goals of this initiative and also
> because it's not obvious to me why LGPL would have been preferred over
> GPLv2 for these files to begin with, assuming they weren't copied from
> some unrelated LGPL-licensed project. I've cc'd Jonathan Brassow and
> Mike Snitzer in case they have any thoughts on this.

Thanks for bringing me in the loop.  I appreciate it.
Right,  No real need for LGPL here (that I'm aware of).

Thomas: do you have all the answers you need?

Mike