On 21/2/20 12:11 pm, Joel Sherrill wrote: > > > On Thu, Feb 20, 2020, 3:49 PM Chris Johns <chr...@rtems.org > <mailto:chr...@rtems.org>> wrote: > > On 21/2/20 3:20 am, Gedare Bloom wrote: > > On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 12:58 AM Thomas Doerfler > > <thomas.doerf...@embedded-brains.de > <mailto:thomas.doerf...@embedded-brains.de>> wrote: > >> > >> Hello, > >> > >> I just want to speak up here. I talked with Sebastian today and I > really > >> tend to keep the license text in each file. > >> > >> Rational: > >> > >> - With the BSD license, anyone can pick any file from the RTEMS repo > and > >> use/modify it in any project (and this is fine). The original authors > >> (and their copyright) are listed in the file, but the only pointer to > >> the legal part is the "SPDX identifier". I am not sure whether this is > a > >> legally binding "tag" and whether this tag is clear to any user. > >> > >> - Strictly seen, it is not even forbidden to remove the "SPDX > >> identifier", because it is not part of the BSD-2-clause-license, it's > >> just a pointer to it. In the end we might result in code drifting > around > >> without license information, which we all do not want to see. > >> > > This is a valid point. I also have no desire to be a lawyer. > > > > My intuition here is that, even without any licensing information at > > all in individual files, one can still apply a single license to an > > entire repository, e.g., BSD or GPL. For historical reasons, and > > similar arguments as you've made, BSD-style licenses have tended to be > > copy-pasted to individual files to make them easier to excerpt. We > > don't have license uniformity, so we do need to individually specify > > which license(s) apply to each file. > > This makes sense. The simplified BSD license states ... > > 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright > notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. > > I do not see how we can centralise this and have the "above copyright" > work? > Also the SPDX site here ... > > https://spdx.org/ids-how > > ... under the heading "Standard license headers" states ... > > When a license defines a recommended notice to attach to files > under that license (sometimes called a "standard header"), the SPDX > project recommends that the standard header be included in the files, > in addition to an SPDX ID. > > My reading of this means we should include the license in the source. > > We need to consider compliance and machine auditing of the source. The > SPDX tag > is important. Maybe ... > > /* > * SPDX tag suff > */ > /* > * Copyright stuff > * > * 2-Clause BSD license > */ > > > Linux follows a similar philosophy as Sebastian suggests. I think we > > can also follow Linux in this regards. > > https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/license-rules.html > > > > I would suggest we follow their approach to self-document the licenses > > centrally. I suspect the risk of someone using code without adhering > > to the license is no greater. Probably they have a higher risk > > exposure than we do! > > I agree with the comments in the Linux license rules text about license > text in > files making it harder to check for compliance. > > > Following Linux is probably a safe approach. I assume there was significant > legal review of their policy.
Does the Linux kernel rules apply to the 2 clause BSD license we have? Chris _______________________________________________ devel mailing list devel@rtems.org http://lists.rtems.org/mailman/listinfo/devel