On Wed, Jan 07, 2026 at 07:52:31PM +0100, Greg KH wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 07, 2026 at 06:12:47PM +0100, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> > Sources already have SPDX-FileCopyrightText (~40 instances) and more
> > appear on the mailing list, so document that it is allowed. On the
> > other hand SPDX defines several other tags like SPDX-FileType, so add
> > checkpatch rule to narrow desired tags only to two of them - license and
> > copyright. That way no new tags would sneak in to the kernel unnoticed.
> >
> > Signed-off-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <[email protected]>
> >
> > ---
> >
> > Other way would be to remove SPDX-FileCopyrightText from existing files
> > and disallow this, but one way or another we should be explicit about
> > it. Otherwise people will be sending more of these and each maintainer
> > would need to make their own call.
> > ---
> > Documentation/process/license-rules.rst | 2 ++
> > scripts/checkpatch.pl | 9 +++++++++
> > 2 files changed, 11 insertions(+)
> >
> > diff --git a/Documentation/process/license-rules.rst
> > b/Documentation/process/license-rules.rst
> > index 59a7832df7d0..8d7c0214f283 100644
> > --- a/Documentation/process/license-rules.rst
> > +++ b/Documentation/process/license-rules.rst
> > @@ -66,6 +66,8 @@ License identifier syntax
> > '#!PATH_TO_INTERPRETER' in the first line. For those scripts the SPDX
> > identifier goes into the second line.
>
> As you are adding a copyright identifier, this sentence should probably
> be:
> For those scripts, the SPDX license identifier goes into the
> second line.
>
> > + Identifier line can be followed by another one with
> > SPDX-FileCopyrightText.
>
> How about:
>
> "The license identifier line can then be followed by a
> SPDX-FileCopyrightText line if desired."
I'd write "by one of multiple" instead of "by a" as multiple copyright
owners for the same file is common in the kernel.
> > +
> > |
> >
> > 2. Style:
> > diff --git a/scripts/checkpatch.pl b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
> > index 362a8d1cd327..98261ee97e2b 100755
> > --- a/scripts/checkpatch.pl
> > +++ b/scripts/checkpatch.pl
> > @@ -3844,6 +3844,15 @@ sub process {
> > "Misplaced SPDX-License-Identifier tag - use line
> > $checklicenseline instead\n" . $herecurr);
> > }
> >
> > +# check for unused SPDX file tags
>
> # check for unsupported SPDX file tags
--
Regards,
Laurent Pinchart
