On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 2:34 PM, luke.leighton <luke.leigh...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sun, May 19, 2013 at 12:19 PM, Jonas Gorski > <jonas.gorski+...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> But dual license means the license taker may chose which license to >> apply, not that you can dictate which one to use. > > yes. > >> And as long as any >> part of the kernel is GPLv2 (no +), (s)he can't choose anything except >> GPLv2, as GPLv2 and GPLv3 are incompatible. > > that doesn't sound right. actually, this is a very very important > misunderstanding, jonas. > > you *can* choose GPLv3 code. what you can choose is: *only* those > files of the linux kernel that are released under GPLv3. > > > pseudo-algorithm in bash script and maybe a bit of python: > > $ filenames_gplv3 = `find . | xargs grep -l GPLv3` > $ filenames_gplv2 = `find . | xargs grep -l GPLv2` > $ files_to_delete = [] > $ for x in filenames_gplv2: > if x not in filenames_gplv2: > files_to_delete.append(x) > $ for x in files_to_delete: > rm $x > > after that procedure is done, _then_ try doing a kernel compile, see > how far you get.
This will produce an empty directory. There are 0 files released under GPLv3 (because its incompatible with GPLv2). There are some release under GPLv2+, but this is mostly drivers and architecture specific code, and a collection of drivers does not make a kernel. Almost nothing of the parts that define a kernel (like memory and process management) are GPLv2+. Therefore I say the kernel will always be GPLv2, no matter how many files you *add* that are GPLv2+. > many people point out that just because this is unlikely to result in > success any time in the next 100 years, that nobody should bother even > starting. Because Linus /is/ the highest authority regarding Linux. He holds the copyright to the most crucial parts, and without his cooperation, you will never get the GPLv2 parts to be re-licensed to GPLv2+, unless you remove everything from him and replace it with your own implementations. And do the same with every other contributors' code who doesn't agree to switch to GPLv2+. >> So any further licenses will never apply to any use in the kernel. > > incorrect!! logical assertion error!! :) > assert(ELOGICALCONCLUSIONBRAINFART) > >> Only if somebody took your code out of the kernel and used it in a >> separate GPLv3+ project, then the GPLv3+ license could and would >> apply. > > after reviewing the above pseudo-code i believe you'll agree that > that's slightly misleading. one could also choose to leave the files > in-place in the *same* project's source tree, and just not use any of > the ones that were incompatibly-licensed. Have fun with that. That isn't a kernel any more, that's a loose collection of drivers and architecture support code. You will have to re-invent every GPLv2 only part they link against/require, or rewrite the GPLv2+ code to not use it. And if you finally got it to work, it has already become a separate project as it won't have much resemblance with the Linux kernel any more. ;-) Also no company will ever bother to do that, because choosing GPLv3 will only bring disadvantages to them. And writing their own kernel/OS will likely be less work and more rewarding, because then they own the copyright for it and can choose any license they want. Jonas -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majord...@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
