Re: [PATCH 5/5] driver core: Remove redundant license text

["Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@kernel.org>]

On Tue, Nov 07, 2017 at 05:30:09PM +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> Now that the SPDX tag is in all driver core files, that identifies the
> license in a specific and legally-defined manner.

Takashi and Jiri mentioned that the effort to add SPDX tags to files which did
not have licensing was discussed at the maintainers summit and it was agreed
upon there that this made sense. That is wonderful.

Naturally, even despite this, some still have their own questions about this
work [0]. And some others seem to actually have pointed out that the work might
have some technical issues [1] likely worth considering.

[0] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20171108151121.GC10374@infradead.org
[1] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/20171108171938.7df66c65@alans-desktop

> So the extra GPL text wording can be removed 

Highlight *removed*

> as it is no longer needed at all.

This secondary however was not.

The only sort of explain about this came from Philippe Ombredanne recently [2] on
the generic effort questioned by Christoph.

[2] https://lkml.kernel.org/r/CAOFm3uFLRCZwtw4F884Rd=5=yZnX_ibzBzyiC4f+=5iju4k81Q@mail.gmail.com

But this begs the question that if there is still questions, issues pointed
out, and request for a bit more open discussion about the *first* SPDX effort
of adding a tag to files which have no license, if there was *any* due process
for creating consensus for also going along with this *secondary* SPDX effort
of license *simplification* by replacing old boiler plate license tags with an
SPDX tag.

At least internally within SUSE I can say so far that we are surprised by these
patches and work. We did not know, and this is the first of communication of
such effort.

Don't get me wrong, these simplifications make perfect sense to me! But in
dealing with licensing considerations before on Linux I've learned through
feedback from you, Alan, and Ted and others to also be *extremely* careful and
sensitive about licensing annotation matters, and this type of change seems to
likely deserve a bit more community consensus than what this seems to be
getting.

Not even an RFC. So why rush this work in?

> This is done on a quest to remove the 700+ different ways that files in
> the kernel describe the GPL license text.  And there's unneeded stuff
> like the address (sometimes incorrect) for the FSF which is never
> needed.

Completely agreed, all this stuff is rather silly, however which tag is used,
when, and how seems to have never been discussed and vetted anywhere to my
knowledge.

Below I leave two examples of the patch, but leave in place the diffstat.

> No copyright headers or other non-license-description text was removed.
> 
> Cc: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
> Cc: Johannes Berg <johannes@sipsolutions.net>
> Cc: "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@kernel.org>
> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
> ---
>  drivers/base/attribute_container.c          |  2 --
>  drivers/base/bus.c                          |  3 ---
>  drivers/base/cacheinfo.c                    | 12 ------------
>  drivers/base/class.c                        |  3 ---
>  drivers/base/component.c                    |  4 ----
>  drivers/base/container.c                    |  4 ----
>  drivers/base/core.c                         |  3 ---
>  drivers/base/dd.c                           |  2 --
>  drivers/base/devcoredump.c                  | 16 ----------------
>  drivers/base/devres.c                       |  2 --
>  drivers/base/dma-contiguous.c               |  5 -----
>  drivers/base/dma-mapping.c                  |  2 --
>  drivers/base/driver.c                       |  3 ---
>  drivers/base/firmware.c                     |  2 --
>  drivers/base/hypervisor.c                   |  2 --
>  drivers/base/init.c                         |  2 --
>  drivers/base/map.c                          |  1 -
>  drivers/base/module.c                       |  3 ---
>  drivers/base/pinctrl.c                      |  2 --
>  drivers/base/platform-msi.c                 | 12 ------------
>  drivers/base/platform.c                     |  2 --
>  drivers/base/property.c                     |  4 ----
>  drivers/base/soc.c                          |  1 -
>  drivers/base/syscore.c                      |  2 --
>  drivers/base/test/test_async_driver_probe.c |  9 ---------
>  drivers/base/topology.c                     | 16 ----------------
>  drivers/base/transport_class.c              |  2 --
>  include/linux/device.h                      |  2 --
>  28 files changed, 123 deletions(-)

<-- snip -->

> diff --git a/drivers/base/cacheinfo.c b/drivers/base/cacheinfo.c
> index e321a7e66a1d..6e1000bff481 100644
> --- a/drivers/base/cacheinfo.c
> +++ b/drivers/base/cacheinfo.c
> @@ -4,18 +4,6 @@
>   *
>   * Based on arch/x86/kernel/cpu/intel_cacheinfo.c
>   * Author: Sudeep Holla <sudeep.holla@arm.com>
> - *
> - * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> - * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 as
> - * published by the Free Software Foundation.
> - *
> - * This program is distributed "as is" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY of any
> - * kind, whether express or implied; without even the implied warranty
> - * of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
> - * GNU General Public License for more details.
> - *
> - * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> - * along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
>   */
>  #define pr_fmt(fmt) KBUILD_MODNAME ": " fmt
>  

<-- snip -->

> diff --git a/drivers/base/firmware.c b/drivers/base/firmware.c
> index 0ef2a36de65e..8dff940e0db9 100644
> --- a/drivers/base/firmware.c
> +++ b/drivers/base/firmware.c
> @@ -6,8 +6,6 @@
>   * Copyright (c) 2002-3 Open Source Development Labs
>   * Copyright (c) 2007 Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@suse.de>
>   * Copyright (c) 2007 Novell Inc.
> - *
> - * This file is released under the GPLv2
>   */
>  #include <linux/kobject.h>
>  #include <linux/module.h>

  Luis