[Buildroot] [PATCH v2 3/5] COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
Arnout Vandecappelle
arnout at mind.be
Wed Feb 10 22:35:22 UTC 2016
On 04-02-16 00:02, Yann E. MORIN wrote:
> Luca, All,
>
> On 2016-02-01 23:19 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
>> > Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches
>> > provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
>> >
>> > Signed-off-by: Luca Ceresoli <luca at lucaceresoli.net>
>> > Cc: Thomas Petazzoni <thomas.petazzoni at free-electrons.com>
>> > Cc: Arnout Vandecappelle <arnout at mind.be>
>> > ---
>> > Changes v1 -> v2:
>> > - Rewrite it almost entirely (Arnout, Thomas).
>> > ---
>> > COPYING | 8 ++++++++
>> > 1 file changed, 8 insertions(+)
>> >
>> > diff --git a/COPYING b/COPYING
>> > index d511905..3596777 100644
>> > --- a/COPYING
>> > +++ b/COPYING
>> > @@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
>> > +Except for the patches provided for packages, Buildroot is licensed
>> > +under the GNU General Public License, version 2.
> There a gotcha here. The manual states, in chapter 12.3:
>
> Buildroot [is] released under the GNU General Public License,
> version 2 or (at your option) any later version.
>
> So, we have to clarify: is it GPLv2 or GPLV2+ ?
>
> It's too late today for me to go digging; I'll do that tomorrow. Just
> rmind me before the end of the week if there's not feedback from my part
> on this topic.
Reminder :-)
But I did the digging. The situation is of course complicated.
We don't have many files that specify a license by themselves. All of them
specify 'or later', except for makedevs.c (obviously, because it is copied from
busybox), toolchain-wrapper.c (added by Peter in 2011), and the manual itself,
which specify v2 only.
The top-level Makefile is the only thing of which you could say that it has
project-wide scope. And that says 'or later'.
So, what does that mean for buildroot as a whole? I think it is GPLv2+, except
for the package patches and except for the files that explicitly specify a
different license. Can we fit that in the formulation that evolved in this thread?
Regards,
Arnout
>
> Until then, NAK.
>
--
Arnout Vandecappelle arnout at mind be
Senior Embedded Software Architect +32-16-286500
Essensium/Mind http://www.mind.be
G.Geenslaan 9, 3001 Leuven, Belgium BE 872 984 063 RPR Leuven
LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arnoutvandecappelle
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