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=-1.0 required=3.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,MAILING_LIST_MULTI,SPF_HELO_NONE,SPF_PASS 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 E268BC282DC for ; Sun, 2 Jun 2019 18:35:49 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A4462279B0 for ; Sun, 2 Jun 2019 18:35:49 +0000 (UTC) Authentication-Results: mail.kernel.org; dkim=pass (1024-bit key) header.d=pobox.com header.i=@pobox.com header.b="Sk5j+NIj"; dkim=fail reason="key not found in DNS" (0-bit key) header.d=lohutok.net header.i=@lohutok.net header.b="VgZzlYys" Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1726305AbfFBSft (ORCPT ); Sun, 2 Jun 2019 14:35:49 -0400 Received: from pb-smtp1.pobox.com ([64.147.108.70]:51995 "EHLO pb-smtp1.pobox.com" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1726270AbfFBSft (ORCPT ); Sun, 2 Jun 2019 14:35:49 -0400 Received: from pb-smtp1.pobox.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by pb-smtp1.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id F121914F107; Sun, 2 Jun 2019 14:35:43 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed; d=pobox.com; h=subject:to:cc :references:from:message-id:date:mime-version:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; s=sasl; bh=kmGtMsdtuET7 7S+EcCLWhcJTix8=; b=Sk5j+NIjfb8IjqlWR0JpeqV7bVF+79FyvfrI3j2PCBH5 WamkkOeG1Y0Eo+bQykdjYOBzdFv4tLiimqrbrrhAlF1UscoGezWUx0NinLVAOz+A 6kk+qEYI45uCp6LH7+glCqsJS4GqEvG/wD+KFY46AU1Z8l1ZbVDSeOa/I977yWk= Received: from pb-smtp1.nyi.icgroup.com (unknown [127.0.0.1]) by pb-smtp1.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id EA24B14F106; Sun, 2 Jun 2019 14:35:43 -0400 (EDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed; d=lohutok.net; h=subject:to:cc:references:from:message-id:date:mime-version:in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; s=2018-11.pbsmtp; bh=kzGxy+FABuJp7jMB3wYyd+NiaSLi9OKgvc9tjKMJ7to=; b=VgZzlYys9AfO9zMF17bCFkpDiM/ulkjAfzZHwevpOhe6wngcaIAykXBYtWrmzfGB3xC+2fSU7/OVdSH/rYfzRHj0qUVHXSX3NGwm2fA5bZ0uqw88Gn/A1VOR4KIiv5gKRVL+8MRjNFuHxs66DIwyUQ9EunJ4tAR3i2+iU2sRkHk= Received: from [10.0.0.75] (unknown [24.47.52.80]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES128-GCM-SHA256 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pb-smtp1.pobox.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 6287814F105; Sun, 2 Jun 2019 14:35:43 -0400 (EDT) Subject: Re: [Batch 10 patch 02/24] treewide: Replace GPLv2 boilerplate/reference with SPDX - rule 202 To: Richard Fontana Cc: John Sullivan , linux-spdx@vger.kernel.org References: <20190528171003.338128414@linutronix.de> <20190528171438.217958884@linutronix.de> <87imttdtfq.fsf@wjsullivan.net> <36ff4ba3-08ff-2785-e9fe-e6aae9cdac5b@lohutok.net> From: Allison Randal Message-ID: <9814f5f7-4972-7571-232d-16333f9f3e9d@lohutok.net> Date: Sun, 2 Jun 2019 14:35:42 -0400 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/60.5.1 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Language: en-US Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Pobox-Relay-ID: 3ABA8456-8565-11E9-97E3-46F8B7964D18-44123303!pb-smtp1.pobox.com Sender: linux-spdx-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-spdx@vger.kernel.org On 5/31/19 4:18 PM, Richard Fontana wrote: > > The first sentence says the code "is licensed under the GNU General > Public License." It doesn't specify a version. I could read that as > meaning "is licensed under any version of the GPL" (regardless of how > we interpret the later-versions clause in GPLv2). The fact that the > following sentence apparently tried to point to the GPLv2 license text > doesn't negate the possibility that the previous sentence was a grant > of license for any version. > > Those copyright notices said 2013, which was 5 years into 2013. If > that means this license notice dates from 2013, by 2013 a reasonable > kernel contributor [1] could be expected to know that an un-versioned > reference to the GPL could refer at least to both GPLv2 and GPLv3 -- > that is, by that time it was common knowledge that there was more than > one actively-used GPL in the world. > > Anyway it seems very different to me from the more typical sort of > GPLv2-only notice that alters the standard GNU notice by eliminating > the "or later" language, so that the reference to "version 2" is in > the same sentence as the license grant language. What's different in > this case is that the license grant language is in one sentence, not > specifying a version, and the only reference to a version is in a > separate sentence that is just pointing to a license text rather than > unambiguously stating that the license grant itself is limited to > version 2. I'm less convinced by that, since the author gave notice of a specific version of the GPL, no matter what line the version number is on. It sounds like GPLv3 already existed when the notice was added, so a "reasonable kernel contributor" could be reasonably expected to say "or later" if they meant -or-later. But, still happy to discuss this one in a batch later, together with other similar variants. Allison