Re: [PATCH v3] checkpatch.pl: Add SPDX license tag check

From: Joe Perches <joe@perches.com>
To: Rob Herring <robh@kernel.org>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Cc: Andy Whitcroft <apw@canonical.com>,
	Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v3] checkpatch.pl: Add SPDX license tag check
Date: Sat, 11 Nov 2017 05:53:12 -0800	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1510408392.10883.5.camel@perches.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20171110201909.6144-1-robh@kernel.org>

On Fri, 2017-11-10 at 14:19 -0600, Rob Herring wrote:
> SPDX license tags are a thing now in the kernel[1]. It has also been
> decided to make them the first line in files. As Linus put it:

Yes, SPDX tags are used in about a quarter of the files
in the kernel.

Again, where is this shown to be desired that this goes
into _every_ file?

If that is so, it needs to be specified _first_ somewhere
in the Documentation/ tree.

Probably in the process - 1.5 Licensing section.

> "The real reason _I_ personally would like to see at least all the new
> SPDX lines to go at the very top of the file is that every time when
> we have some kind of ambiguity about placement, we end up with
> multiple cases, and then people don't notice when merging, and you end
> up having two - or you just end up having unnecessary merge conflicts
> because two different people picked two different choices)."
> 
> Add a warning if SPDX-License-Identifier tag is not present in the first
> line (or 2nd for #! scripts) of files.
> 
> [1] https://lwn.net/Articles/738235/

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