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=HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,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 C4F82C282C4 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:34:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: from vger.kernel.org (vger.kernel.org [209.132.180.67]) by mail.kernel.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8FE2521B68 for ; Tue, 12 Feb 2019 20:34:54 +0000 (UTC) Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1731134AbfBLUex convert rfc822-to-8bit (ORCPT ); Tue, 12 Feb 2019 15:34:53 -0500 Received: from mondschein.lichtvoll.de ([194.150.191.11]:46039 "EHLO mail.lichtvoll.de" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1728093AbfBLUew (ORCPT ); Tue, 12 Feb 2019 15:34:52 -0500 Authentication-Results: auth=pass smtp.auth=martin smtp.mailfrom=martin@lichtvoll.de Received: from 127.0.0.1 (localhost [127.0.0.1]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mail.lichtvoll.de (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id C314645BB8F; Tue, 12 Feb 2019 21:34:49 +0100 (CET) From: Martin Steigerwald To: debian-legal@lists.debian.org Cc: Jens Axboe , Ben Finney , Martin Steigerwald , Domenico Andreoli , 919356@bugs.debian.org, Kristian Fiskerstrand , Nadia Yvette Chambers , Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo , "linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org" , Jens Axboe Subject: Re: Bug#919356: Licensing of include/linux/hash.h Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2019 21:34:49 +0100 Message-ID: <35245979.F6S9gYasto@merkaba> In-Reply-To: <8a87da85-3aef-a113-f93f-c96ab465c96f@kernel.dk> References: <20190115170017.5gxarqxzfezgr5ld@dumbo> <86va1p7c7z.fsf@benfinney.id.au> <8a87da85-3aef-a113-f93f-c96ab465c96f@kernel.dk> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org Precedence: bulk List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Jens Axboe - 12.02.19, 17:16: > On 2/11/19 11:27 PM, Ben Finney wrote: > > Martin Steigerwald writes: > >> Well the file has in its header: > >> > >> /* Fast hashing routine for a long. > >> > >> (C) 2002 William Lee Irwin III, IBM */ > >> > >> /* > >> > >> * Knuth recommends primes in approximately golden ratio to the > >> maximum * integer representable by a machine word for > >> multiplicative hashing. * Chuck Lever verified the effectiveness > >> of this technique: > >> * http://www.citi.umich.edu/techreports/reports/citi-tr-00-1.pdf > >> * > >> * These primes are chosen to be bit-sparse, that is operations on > >> * them can use shifts and additions instead of multiplications for > >> * machines where multiplications are slow. > >> */ > >> > >> It has been quite a while ago. I bet back then I did not regard > >> this > >> as license information since it does not specify a license. Thus I > >> assumed it to be GPL-2 as the other files which have no license > >> boiler plate. I.e.: Check file is it has different license, if > >> not, then assume it has license as specified in COPYING. > >> > >> Not specifying a license can however also mean in this context that > >> it has no license as the file contains copyright information from > >> another author. > > > > If a work (even one file) “has no license”, that means no special > > permissions are granted and normal copyright applies: All rights > > reserved, i.e. not redistributable. So, no license is grounds to > > consider a work non-free and non-redistributable. > > > > If, on the other hand, the file is to be free software, there would > > need to be a clear grant of some free software license to that > > work. > > > > Given the confusion over this file, I would consider it a > > significant > > risk to just assume we have GPLv2 permissions without being told > > that > > explicitly by the copyright holder. Rather, the reason we are > > seeking a clearly-granted free license for this one file, is > > because we are trying to replace a probably non-free file with the > > same code in it. > > > > It seems we need to keep looking, and in the meantime assume we have > > no free license in this file. > > FWIW, fio.c includes the following mention: > > * The license below covers all files distributed with fio unless > otherwise * noted in the file itself. > > followed by the GPL v2 license. I'll go through and add SPDX headers > to everything to avoid wasting anymore time on this nonsense. Thank you, Jens, for settling this. I did not remember that one. It may very well be that I have seen this note as I initially packaged fio as my first package for Debian about 10 years ago. I forwarded your mail and the one from Domenico with the SPDX patch to Debian bug #922112 fio: hash.h is not DFSG compliant https://bugs.debian.org/922112 which I closed before as you told already that hash.c is GPL-2. Thanks, -- Martin