Re: [patch V4 02/11] LICENSES: Add the GPL 2.0 license

From: Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@nexb.com>
To: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
Cc: LKML <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Andrew Morton <akpm@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>,
	Kate Stewart <kstewart@linuxfoundation.org>,
	Christoph Hellwig <hch@lst.de>,
	Russell King <rmk+kernel@armlinux.org.uk>,
	Rob Herring <rob.herring@linaro.org>,
	Jonas Oberg <jonas@fsfe.org>, Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>,
	xfs <linux-xfs@vger.kernel.org>,
	Charlemagne Lasse <charlemagnelasse@gmail.com>,
	Carmen Bianca Bakker <carmenbianca@fsfe.org>
Subject: Re: [patch V4 02/11] LICENSES: Add the GPL 2.0 license
Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2017 22:00:09 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <CAOFm3uHGoZR-F3hu-Sh3ZVY5+WLXHb5mf-AG_TEDyw5TWpKv_A@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20171205073620.GB15358@kroah.com>

On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 8:36 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman
<gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 04, 2017 at 10:19:29PM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> Add the full text of the GPL 2.0 license to the LICENSES directory.  It was
>> copied directly from the COPYING file in the kernel source tree as it
>> differs from the public available version of the license in various places
>> including the FSF.
>>
>> Philippe did some research on the GPL2.0 history:
>>
>>   There is NO trustworthy version of an official GPL 2.0 text: the FSF
>>   official texts are all fubar (if only in small and subtle ways). The FSF
>>   texts should be authoritative, but then which one? They published more
>>   GPL 2.0 versions than most. So we would be hard pressed to blame SPDX or
>>   the OSI for having their own minor variant.
>>
>>   Then in digging further, I found the ONE true original GPL with a file
>>   time stamp on June 2 1991, 01:50 (AM?, PM? unknown time zone?)  ! in an
>>   old GCC archive.
>>
>>   For the posterity and everyone's enjoyment I have built a git history
>>   of GPL 2.0 Mark1 to Mark6
>>
>>   See https://github.com/pombredanne/gpl-history/commits/master/COPYING
>>
>>   I also added a shorter history of the Linux COPYING text. The first
>>   version in Linus's git tree is based on the very fine and well tuned GPL
>>   2 Mark4, the first fully Y2K compliant version of the GPL 2, as you can
>>   see from the diffs with the former Mark3: that was dangerously stuck in
>>   the last century.
>>
>>   The current version in is based on a rare GPL 2.0 Mark5.1 aka "Franklin
>>   St", that I do not have in my history yet and spells "Franklin St."
>>   rather than "Franklin Street."  Therefore there is likely another GPL 2.0
>>   version between Mark4 and Mark5 that I have yet to find and may not have
>>   been caught by the archive.org spiders. Here help and patches welcomed:
>>   this is likely an important missing link.
>>
>>   Further information about this archaelogical research;
>>
>>   http://lkml.kernel.org/r/CAOFm3uEzRMf261+O-Nm+9HDoEn9RbFjH=5J9i1C2GgMUg2G4LA@mail.gmail.com
>>
>> Add the required tags for reference and tooling.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de>
>
> Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>

Thomas you have my cheerful review, this digging was quite fun in fact
and I am not half proud of this ending in the kernel doc: thank you.

Reviewed-by: Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@nexb.com>

-- 
Cordially
Philippe Ombredanne