Messages in this thread | | | From | "Luis R. Rodriguez" <> | Date | Fri, 6 Apr 2012 20:01:36 -0700 | Subject | Re: [PATCH] module: Clarify GPL-Compatible is OK |
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On Fri, Apr 6, 2012 at 7:49 PM, Ted Ts'o <tytso@mit.edu> wrote: > On Fri, Apr 06, 2012 at 05:51:51PM -0700, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote: >> >> Its a good point that we are not declaring the exact license used for >> software, and while that is useful the "Dual BSD/GPL" tag is >> misleading. As I see it there are four options: > > So the real question is what is the purpose of MODULE_LICENSE()? > Specifically, is it intended for anything other than to tell the that > this module is OK to use EXPORT_SYMBOL_GPL symbols?
At this point that's the only thing this could be used for reliably.
> Your patch which changes things like > > MODULE_LICENSE("Dual BSD/GPL"); > > to > > MODULE_LICENSE("GPL-Compatible"); > > in my opinion, muddles things even more, since now in some cases > MODULE_LICENSE() will name a specific license (i.e., GPL), and in > other cases, a set of licenses (i.e., GPL-Compatible).
Another good point.
> After all, > isn't a GPL license by definition GPL-compatible?
:) Yeah
> So why not change *all* MODULE_LICENSE(GPL) statements to be MODULE_LICENSE(GPL-Compatible)?
This is obviously ridiculous, I hope I'm clarifying there is something confusing that is in fact not ridiculous though.
> If that seems like a large, pointless patch, then maybe it's not worth it > to change "Dual BSD/GPL" to "GPL-Compatible".
The fact that the extreme example you provide follows the logic does not entail that the issue I am stating is pointless.
> I also really don't see how this helps License compliance folks. If > the BSD folks trying to figure out whether or not they can use some > piece of code, "GPL-Compatible" is no more useful than as "Dual > BSD/GPL". In fact, Dual BSD/GPL might actually be more useful since > at least to me it says it can be used under the BSD or GPL license, > which is precisely what the BSD folks need.
If we are OK with this thread serving as documentation for this then so be it, but I still prefer for this to be clarified more. *I* am comfortable with this but I know other vendors who did try to achieve the same sharing had quite a bit of time trying to validate the approach. I rather speed help clarify this is a reasonable approach and also avoid flamewars like the ones we faced when developers eons ago though that we *had* to GPL the OpenBSD ar5k HAL when we ported it to Linux for use in ath5k.
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