[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Petr Vorel]

Hi,

We have various files which states GPL v2. I guess the reason is that LTP merged
various other smaller testsuites in the past.

$ git grep -l "GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE"  | xargs sha1sum  | sort -u

acd633a2cfa753e6be4e5fc68db32fb3c4672fa5  testcases/kernel/hotplug/cpu_hotplug/COPYING
acd633a2cfa753e6be4e5fc68db32fb3c4672fa5  testcases/kernel/hotplug/memory_hotplug/COPYING
a7a897a4bde987e597c04f16a9c28f6d3f57916d  testcases/realtime/COPYING
b47456e2c1f38c40346ff00db976a2badf36b5e3  testcases/kernel/security/mmc_security/LICENSE
b47456e2c1f38c40346ff00db976a2badf36b5e3  utils/benchmark/ebizzy-0.3/LICENSE
c9661f3c6fdc868720828a34d74f1e22718c8388  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/fork/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_cancel/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_cond_init/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_create/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_exit/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_getschedparam/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_kill/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_mutex_init/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_mutex_lock/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_mutex_trylock/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_once/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/pthread_self/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/sem_getvalue/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/sem_init/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  testcases/open_posix_testsuite/stress/threads/sem_open/LICENCE
dfac199a7539a404407098a2541b9482279f690d  utils/benchmark/kernbench-0.42/COPYING
0b184ad51ba2a79e85d2288d5fcf8a1ea0481ea4  testcases/kernel/io/writetest/gpl.txt
4cc77b90af91e615a64ae04893fdffa7939db84c  COPYING
74a8a6531a42e124df07ab5599aad63870fa0bd4  testcases/kernel/controllers/freezer/COPYING

The diff is mostly different FSF address.
COPYING has been updated in 945f9c69a, others are older; not sure if it's
lastest GPL v2 version.

testcases/kernel/hotplug/{cpu_hotplug,memory_hotplug}/COPYING mention:
"These tests are OSDL/LF and imported into LTP under GPLv2."

testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING has extra BSD 2-clause license + other
test at the top:

All sourcecode generated from scratch by Ngie Cooper is BSD 2-clause
licensed. All legacy openposix test suite code is GPLv2+ licensed.

You must honor the respective license when copying code.

BSD 2-clause license:
...

I suppose it's safe to keep only single licence in testcases/open_posix_testsuite/,
but could we keep only COPYING in the root directory and delete the rest?
Or keep COPYING and testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING only?

Kind regards,
Petr

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Cyril Hrubis]

Hi!
> I suppose it's safe to keep only single licence in testcases/open_posix_testsuite/,
> but could we keep only COPYING in the root directory and delete the rest?
> Or keep COPYING and testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING only?

Do we even need these files? Isn't SPDX identifier enough these days?

-- 
Cyril Hrubis
chrubis@suse.cz

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Petr Vorel]

Hi Cyril,

> Hi!
> > I suppose it's safe to keep only single licence in testcases/open_posix_testsuite/,
> > but could we keep only COPYING in the root directory and delete the rest?
> > Or keep COPYING and testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING only?

> Do we even need these files? Isn't SPDX identifier enough these days?
It be nice we don't need it, but not sure. Looking into kernel tree, there is
LICENSES folder [1] and they describe how they use SPDX [2]:

Valid-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
Valid-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
Valid-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
Valid-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
SPDX-URL: https://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-2.0.html
Usage-Guide:
  To use this license in source code, put one of the following SPDX
  tag/value pairs into a comment according to the placement
  guidelines in the licensing rules documentation.
  For 'GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 only' use:
    SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
  or
    SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
  For 'GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or any later version' use:
    SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
  or
    SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
License-Text:

		    GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
		       Version 2, June 1991
...

Kind regards,
Petr

[1] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES
[2] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Li Wang]

> > > I suppose it's safe to keep only single licence in testcases/open_posix_testsuite/,
> > > but could we keep only COPYING in the root directory and delete the rest?
> > > Or keep COPYING and testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING only?
>
> > Do we even need these files? Isn't SPDX identifier enough these days?
> It be nice we don't need it, but not sure. Looking into kernel tree, there is
> LICENSES folder [1] and they describe how they use SPDX [2]:

My perspective is to stay on the safe side, keep one in the LTP root
dir and one in the subproject(e.g. open_posix).

The general files go with the SPDX identifier header.

-- 
Regards,
Li Wang

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Cyril Hrubis]

Hi!
> My perspective is to stay on the safe side, keep one in the LTP root
> dir and one in the subproject(e.g. open_posix).
> 
> The general files go with the SPDX identifier header.

That is indeed the safest option, can't disagreee with that.

-- 
Cyril Hrubis
chrubis@suse.cz

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Petr Vorel]

Hi Li,

> > > > I suppose it's safe to keep only single licence in testcases/open_posix_testsuite/,
> > > > but could we keep only COPYING in the root directory and delete the rest?
> > > > Or keep COPYING and testcases/open_posix_testsuite/COPYING only?

> > > Do we even need these files? Isn't SPDX identifier enough these days?
> > It be nice we don't need it, but not sure. Looking into kernel tree, there is
> > LICENSES folder [1] and they describe how they use SPDX [2]:

> My perspective is to stay on the safe side, keep one in the LTP root
> dir and one in the subproject(e.g. open_posix).
This makes sense. I'll send RFC patch with your ack.

> The general files go with the SPDX identifier header.
+1

Kind regards,
Petr

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Enji Cooper]

I?d actually exercise some caution here. If there was a top-level LICENSE file that was distributed, that would be awesome, but if people take bits and pieces of subprojects and hack it in elsewhere without there being appropriate attributions to the original authors and such, you could get into serious legal trouble.

Doing the ?right thing? requires getting all authors? sign-off in order to change licensing information and such. The FreeBSD project for instance has had to hop through a lot of hoops to change code from BSD 3-clause to 2-clause because some of the authors didn?t sign over the code to the project when contributing it, since the concern with signing off on code and such predated the code contribution.

Unless there?s a real need for consolidating the LICENSE files, I?d leave it well enough alone in the source tree and just aggregate all of the licenses as an uber license and distribute it with the binary packages.

That?s just my 2 cents,
-Enji
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[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Cyril Hrubis]

Hi!
> Unless there???s a real need for consolidating the LICENSE files,
> I???d leave it well enough alone in the source tree and just aggregate
> all of the licenses as an uber license and distribute it with the
> binary packages.

As far as I can tell the cleanup patch removes 22 identical copies of
GPL v2 sprinkled randomly over the tree and keeps only the top level
one, while each of the individual files still retains a copyright and a
seprarate license. As far as I can tell this is harmless.

-- 
Cyril Hrubis
chrubis@suse.cz

[LTP] [RFC] Reduce LICENCE/COPYING files

[Petr Vorel]

Hi all,

> Hi!
> > Unless there???s a real need for consolidating the LICENSE files,
> > I???d leave it well enough alone in the source tree and just aggregate
> > all of the licenses as an uber license and distribute it with the
> > binary packages.

> As far as I can tell the cleanup patch removes 22 identical copies of
> GPL v2 sprinkled randomly over the tree and keeps only the top level
> one, while each of the individual files still retains a copyright and a
> seprarate license. As far as I can tell this is harmless.

Patch merged, thanks for your ack!

Kind regards,
Petr