On Wed, 30 Jan 2019 15:18:29 +0000 Daniel P. Berrangé <berra...@redhat.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 30, 2019 at 09:01:01AM -0600, Eric Blake wrote: > > On 1/29/19 7:51 AM, Cornelia Huck wrote: > > > On Tue, 29 Jan 2019 14:37:47 +0100 > > > Thomas Huth <th...@redhat.com> wrote: > > > > > >> It's either "GNU *Library* General Public License version 2" or > > >> "GNU Lesser General Public License version *2.1*", but there was > > >> no "version 2.0" of the "Lesser" license. So assume that version > > >> 2.1 is meant here. > > > > > > I think we can assume that. > > > > > > Given that there have been several of these cases (and that there's a > > > lot of boilerplate in general): Should we adopt SPDX license > > > identifiers for QEMU, as the Linux kernel did? They also discovered and > > > fixed some problems/oddities while at it. > > > > I'm also in favor of SPDX license identifiers - their brevity and > > machine-parsability favors more accurate usage and fewer copy/paste > > mistake propagation. > > I'm curious if the kernel developers actually ended up removing the > current boilerplate license text from files they added SPDX tags > to ? > > The original work only added SPDX tags to files which lacked any > pre-existing license text > > https://lwn.net/Articles/739183/ > > Although its from 2017, the LWN article indicates there was > some uncertainty about whether they'd actually go through with > removing license text, especially for files where the person > removing the text is not the exclusive copyright holder: > > > "An additional goal is to eventually get rid of the other license > texts; the consensus seems to be that the SPDX identifier is a > sufficient declaration of the license on its own. But removing > license text from source files must be done with a great deal > of care, so it may be a long time before anybody works up the > courage to attempt that on any files that they do not themselves > own the copyright for. " > > I can understand the sentiment that SPDX identifier alone should be > sufficient, but I think I'd want to see an explicit legal opinion from > a lawyer who works with open source before removing any license text. > > Any one know if anything changed in this respect since that 2017 > lwn article ? The boilerplate texts have been removed; see e.g. 13d1d559f04a ("s390: drivers: Remove redundant license text"). The commit messages for this and other patches also suggest that SPDX identifiers are legally binding, so this has probably been vetted by a couple of lawyers already.
