From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1752690AbdKHPL3 (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Nov 2017 10:11:29 -0500 Received: from bombadil.infradead.org ([65.50.211.133]:42170 "EHLO bombadil.infradead.org" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1752057AbdKHPL1 (ORCPT ); Wed, 8 Nov 2017 10:11:27 -0500 Date: Wed, 8 Nov 2017 07:11:21 -0800 From: Christoph Hellwig To: Philippe Ombredanne Cc: Christoph Hellwig , "Theodore Ts'o" , Alan Cox , Greg Kroah-Hartman , "Darrick J. Wong" , Eric Sandeen , xfs , LKML , Kate Stewart Subject: Re: WTF? Re: [PATCH] License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license Message-ID: <20171108151121.GC10374@infradead.org> References: <20171107020607.GA26910@magnolia> <20171107072040.GB4586@infradead.org> <20171107073940.GB4654@kroah.com> <20171107172042.GB26910@magnolia> <20171107182903.GA4588@kroah.com> <20171107184658.56b87d41@alans-desktop> <20171107191526.x3rzfcnnlmaz264d@thunk.org> <20171107192846.GA24617@infradead.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.8.3 (2017-05-23) X-SRS-Rewrite: SMTP reverse-path rewritten from by bombadil.infradead.org. See http://www.infradead.org/rpr.html Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Wed, Nov 08, 2017 at 01:35:46PM +0100, Philippe Ombredanne wrote: > The benefits now and later: > - no distraction with licensing boilerplate cr*p in patches and files > - no guessing licensing needed when sending a patch > - anyone can grep the kernel tree for licensing, no extra tool needed > - Greg must feel really good about deleting so much things for once This patch didn't delete anything, it added random notes. I see now Greg deletes things from files he maintains which is even worse, given that the kernel tree doesn't document anywhere what these tags actually mean. So he deletes a lot of license tags and replaces them with tags he puts a great significance on, but which aren't defined. A quick googles shows some Linuxfoundation web page defines them, but they could change them any time they want, nevermind that we don't even have a reference to them either. > > The downsides: > - folks can no longer express their creativity in licensing texts like > licensing thermal code under the "therms" of the GPL [2] I'd love something like that to happen. But for that we don't need a sneaky patch that doesn't talk to kernel contributors. For that we need to a) agree on which licensing schemes we accept for future contributions b) cleary document that policy in the kernel tree c) reject anything that doesn't matter the above policy by manual and/or automated review An automated tag scheme might help with b) and c) above if done properly. But for that we need to document it, agree on it, discuss it with everyone involved, etc. None of that has happened. Instead Greg farted arcane tags that he thinks have a legal singnificance all over three three without talking to the people whos code he tagged, without any RFC or public discussion, without documenting what his tags mean or any future strategy towards making use of them.