On Tue, Oct 05, 2021 at 04:57:55PM +0000, Tim.Bird@sony.com wrote:
-----Original Message----- From: Greg KH gregkh@linuxfoundation.org Sent: Tuesday, October 5, 2021 8:17 AM To: Luis Chamberlain mcgrof@kernel.org Cc: tj@kernel.org; akpm@linux-foundation.org; minchan@kernel.org; jeyu@kernel.org; shuah@kernel.org; bvanassche@acm.org; dan.j.williams@intel.com; joe@perches.com; tglx@linutronix.de; keescook@chromium.org; rostedt@goodmis.org; linux- spdx@vger.kernel.org; linux-doc@vger.kernel.org; linux-block@vger.kernel.org; linux-fsdevel@vger.kernel.org; linux- kselftest@vger.kernel.org; linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: [PATCH v8 03/12] selftests: add tests_sysfs module
On Mon, Sep 27, 2021 at 09:37:56AM -0700, Luis Chamberlain wrote:
--- /dev/null +++ b/lib/test_sysfs.c @@ -0,0 +1,921 @@ +// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later OR copyleft-next-0.3.1 +/*
- sysfs test driver
- Copyright (C) 2021 Luis Chamberlain mcgrof@kernel.org
- This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
- under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
- Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or at your option any
- later version; or, when distributed separately from the Linux kernel or
- when incorporated into other software packages, subject to the following
- license:
This is a very strange license grant, which I'm not sure is covered by any current SPDX syntax. " when distributed separately from the Linux kernel or when incorporated into other software packages, subject to the following license:"
drivers/xen/events/events_fifo.c has that same language.
Why would we care about the license used when the code is used in a non-kernel project? If it is desired for the code to be available outside the kernel under a different license, then surely the easiest thing is to make it available separately under that license. I'm not sure why the kernel needs to carry this license for non-kernel use of the code.
I would recommend giving this a GPLv2 SPDX header, and maybe in the comment at the top of the file put a reference to a git repository where the code can be obtained under a different license.
Keeping the dual let's new updates directly on the kernel benefit from evolution. A fork would stagnate it in place and would require updates separately.
Luis