From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.0 (2014-02-07) on aws-us-west-2-korg-lkml-1.web.codeaurora.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=3.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_PASS autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0 Received: from mail.kernel.org (mail.kernel.org [198.145.29.99]) by smtp.lore.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7BDDFC282C4 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:36:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51686222C1 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:36:18 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1731289AbfBLUgQ convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 12 Feb 2019 15:36:16 -0500 Received: from mondschein.lichtvoll.de ([194.150.191.11]:50365 "EHLO mail.lichtvoll.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1727733AbfBLUgQ (ORCPT ); Tue, 12 Feb 2019 15:36:16 -0500 Authentication-Results: auth=pass smtp.auth=martin smtp.mailfrom=martin@lichtvoll.de Received: from 127.0.0.1 (localhost [127.0.0.1]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.lichtvoll.de (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 1CCAD45BB9C; Tue, 12 Feb 2019 21:36:14 +0100 (CET) From: Martin Steigerwald To: Ben Finney , Martin Steigerwald Cc: Domenico Andreoli , 919356@bugs.debian.org, Kristian Fiskerstrand , Nadia Yvette Chambers , Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , "debian-legal@lists.debian.org" , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , Jens Axboe Subject: Re: Bug#919356: Licensing of include/linux/hash.h Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 21:36:13 +0100 Message-ID: <1812608.77Onv0mZ32@merkaba> In-Reply-To: <86va1p7c7z.fsf@benfinney.id.au> References: <20190115170017.5gxarqxzfezgr5ld@dumbo> <20190211072259.GA19224@nouveau> <20190115083241.6c6ftrw73xuv26j6@dumbo> <2977287.v5rPGuGa1n@merkaba> <86va1p7c7z.fsf@benfinney.id.au> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On 2/11/19 11:27 PM, Ben Finney wrote: > Martin Steigerwald writes: > >> Well the file has in its header: >> >> /* Fast hashing routine for a long. >> (C) 2002 William Lee Irwin III, IBM */ >> >> /* >> * Knuth recommends primes in approximately golden ratio to the maximum >> * integer representable by a machine word for multiplicative hashing. >> * Chuck Lever verified the effectiveness of this technique: >> * http://www.citi.umich.edu/techreports/reports/citi-tr-00-1.pdf >> * >> * These primes are chosen to be bit-sparse, that is operations on >> * them can use shifts and additions instead of multiplications for >> * machines where multiplications are slow. >> */ >> >> It has been quite a while ago. I bet back then I did not regard this >> as license information since it does not specify a license. Thus I >> assumed it to be GPL-2 as the other files which have no license boiler >> plate. I.e.: Check file is it has different license, if not, then >> assume it has license as specified in COPYING. >> >> Not specifying a license can however also mean in this context that it >> has no license as the file contains copyright information from another >> author. > > If a work (even one file) “has no license”, that means no special > permissions are granted and normal copyright applies: All rights > reserved, i.e. not redistributable. So, no license is grounds to > consider a work non-free and non-redistributable. > > If, on the other hand, the file is to be free software, there would need > to be a clear grant of some free software license to that work. > > Given the confusion over this file, I would consider it a significant > risk to just assume we have GPLv2 permissions without being told that > explicitly by the copyright holder. Rather, the reason we are seeking a > clearly-granted free license for this one file, is because we are trying > to replace a probably non-free file with the same code in it. > > It seems we need to keep looking, and in the meantime assume we have no > free license in this file. FWIW, fio.c includes the following mention: * The license below covers all files distributed with fio unless otherwise * noted in the file itself. followed by the GPL v2 license. I'll go through and add SPDX headers to everything to avoid wasting anymore time on this nonsense. -- Jens Axboe