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=-4.0 required=3.0 tests=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SIGNED_OFF_BY,SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS,URIBL_BLOCKED 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 C4434C04AB5 for ; Mon, 3 Jun 2019 12:37:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A1C3828108 for ; Mon, 3 Jun 2019 12:37:08 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726349AbfFCMhI (ORCPT ); Mon, 3 Jun 2019 08:37:08 -0400 Received: from mout.kundenserver.de ([212.227.126.135]:34069 "EHLO mout.kundenserver.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726336AbfFCMhI (ORCPT ); Mon, 3 Jun 2019 08:37:08 -0400 Received: from [192.168.1.110] ([95.118.71.36]) by mrelayeu.kundenserver.de (mreue009 [212.227.15.167]) with ESMTPSA (Nemesis) id 1Mgvj3-1gv88k3ijV-00hL6q; Mon, 03 Jun 2019 14:36:59 +0200 Subject: Re: [Batch 16 patch 01/25] treewide: Replace GPLv2 boilerplate/reference with SPDX - rule 226 To: Armijn Hemel - Tjaldur Software Governance Solutions , Thomas Gleixner , linux-spdx@vger.kernel.org References: <20190602204441.312079455@linutronix.de> <20190602204653.087533673@linutronix.de> <1a0494fe-8925-39e0-c57d-7f19fdda98e6@metux.net> From: "Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult" Organization: metux IT consult Message-ID: <63f9b07d-248d-c813-705c-60810b95a8c4@metux.net> Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2019 14:36:58 +0200 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686 on x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.2.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Provags-ID: V03:K1:1xljtfGT6voWkEdckAQ0pJaJ+5ADzDbatCMzKm00t/5YQLdlcOy L5ca8j16O9x5uaVnI40Q5meny3N0JdLE3W7lgkpXANlqlISPWSa/uCUiQEV1Dr1IZYsOC4m JEDT9bKZi50wold5NarTNkS9gCPs+h0AWrswax/ygQc9vAQ4fFwgUOydkjNAlcxHnyjDVed GUdqV6tXHzBL/MQOkbyvw== X-UI-Out-Filterresults: notjunk:1;V03:K0:E6g+Lh70qIY=:yNR6JgpepC2vJgZsPQwFAa OzU1gtAMyUSYzxgrsSloew1WtMFJ/gjWQ1OHMTy/VnJrrQuuUqU75Iwqa/P1gG1MLBghD2JKW KtkzDiCdAIHPhcE/oDrSbtHSO55f967sj0bAP2TRCyDrrHgXAqLtzUWc3z2utXjzQ/ox7YmXU pCV90WZxh1hXAcPfJwqwUIcWt/yR9ck2c7FDWcdEDTXTxqJT/VFzQszBfr8pZFH/SHCpLg9Bn jAKMnWG/QybHc82RICbf/TctwENTKc7NgeIZpcAzvSZAUXjkbZpourjWMMngYhtjbKYQO7lWE Ysq1d35JZA1CMWU/ewKSLaSTEIrlBI53IeMSiKldna/SLAXox1LkJnfMc/mSuzMcxQhmsmoaG L9Xbo5iXQxDS8UNob9DONXDKvdcDR/jD8Nz+WLGjtmjfXXJxq35K/jFJ2nd1XdXg9HlPwS29c Cs5sRoxR490eZSYEn7pc9R/4QkEaSDdF8BHkPijR9VbFJqnW7h3KX9BDz7+1MOF6biYtaXPvA A4zu3hTDa+KUX0O4z3kKyK5BCXc3TkBBZa0bRwKMiQ81GsVbVzeN2Lw53q8hzkMIaZsaD18m3 KiQjrmxtRaKfpLYjfGixGUI7/61oQyBxLrWr+6lBJi5KCMBofracUtsCyeOS4AS076xOj4pyA p+XWsjU9iM6hRlcZc/A9vPV9PCsnxnlIzrkWAFn3jgZv431mqlllGCa9DE6YOX6+s0G/NXI6W ri/brLgSTY2c5yP3QtEGj5ouSaSGmgwsLduWPXZvZ1nL2kQ9z914WOh5qwKU8h6+IkUwDfxSG rkybG5ASUTRQm62ASrXlyHsxKEnkxbfDdep/gHqBvLWmFC+X56SCAdz+za8BOWAypLN8UOO Sender: linux-spdx-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-spdx@vger.kernel.org Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Post: On 03.06.19 12:46, Armijn Hemel - Tjaldur Software Governance Solutions wrote: > Yes, I think they would be. That being said, copyright notices in the > Linux kernel are horribly out of date/inaccurate and even Git does not > do a good job of recording these (garbage in, garbage out). Git only has > a single "Author" field and I know of commits where the commit message > had two authors listed and the that was added had three authors listed. > Then there are all kinds of silly tags in the Linux kernel where it is > absolutely unclear whether or not someone is claiming copyright or not. > See for examples this article: > https://www.ifosslr.org/index.php/ifosslr/article/view/121 uh, I didn't expect it to be that complicated :o I was assuming that Author: and Signed-off-by: would be sufficient. (okay, we'd need some git-blame counterpart that honors Signed-off-by). > Also, author doesn't necessarily mean copyright owner, company > affiliation also does not necessarily mean copyright is with the company > (it depends on the work contract) and it would require a lot more > research to find the true copyright owner. > > The copyright statements also have other relevant information, such as > years. This is relevant to find out which copyright laws were in effect > when the code was published. hmm, maybe we should start w/ introducing some rules for that for all new code ? Maybe: Rule 1: If not stated otherwise, the Signed-Off-By indicates the signer claims copyright for the added or replaced lines of code. This only affect any lines of code that were already present (and unchanged) before these rules taking effect. Rule 2: New files shall have some SPDX-Copyright: header (checkpatch should check for that). Rule 3: If the SPDX-Copyright header is present, all mentioned authors claim copyright for the whole file, except for claims from other rules. Rule 4: For existing files, SPDX-Copyright header may be added on a per- case basis, when actual copyright claims have been validated. Rule 5: If the author is transferring his claims to some company, this company shall be mentioned in the Signed-Off-By or SPDX- Copyright headers. Certainly, it will take a long time, until everything is really cleared up, but IMHO a good start, at least for all new code. > There was a discussion about this a few days ago (please see the list > archive). Personally I don't see the benefit. There already have been lawsuits on GPL violations. For such, the actual copyright holders of the disputed code have be clear. Personally, I wouldn't spend too much efforts in here, but I'd wish to have some clear rules for any new contributions (in order to not making the situation worse as it already is). --mtx -- Enrico Weigelt, metux IT consult Free software and Linux embedded engineering info@metux.net -- +49-151-27565287