On Thu, Feb 20, 2020 at 12:58 AM Thomas Doerfler <thomas.doerf...@embedded-brains.de> wrote: > > Hello, > > I just want to speak up here. I talked with Sebastian today and I really > tend to keep the license text in each file. > > Rational: > > - With the BSD license, anyone can pick any file from the RTEMS repo and > use/modify it in any project (and this is fine). The original authors > (and their copyright) are listed in the file, but the only pointer to > the legal part is the "SPDX identifier". I am not sure whether this is a > legally binding "tag" and whether this tag is clear to any user. > > - Strictly seen, it is not even forbidden to remove the "SPDX > identifier", because it is not part of the BSD-2-clause-license, it's > just a pointer to it. In the end we might result in code drifting around > without license information, which we all do not want to see. > This is a valid point. I also have no desire to be a lawyer.
My intuition here is that, even without any licensing information at all in individual files, one can still apply a single license to an entire repository, e.g., BSD or GPL. For historical reasons, and similar arguments as you've made, BSD-style licenses have tended to be copy-pasted to individual files to make them easier to excerpt. We don't have license uniformity, so we do need to individually specify which license(s) apply to each file. Linux follows a similar philosophy as Sebastian suggests. I think we can also follow Linux in this regards. https://www.kernel.org/doc/html/latest/process/license-rules.html I would suggest we follow their approach to self-document the licenses centrally. I suspect the risk of someone using code without adhering to the license is no greater. Probably they have a higher risk exposure than we do! > As you all know I am not a lawyer (and don't want to be), but my gut > say's the extra lines in the top of each file are worth their storage. > And anybody opening a RTEMS source file (even when it has been taken to > a different project) should see what he has. > > --------- > > If you have different reasons to replace the header and just leave the > identifier I a will go with it and it's fine for me. But my tendency > is... leave it in. > > Kind regards, > > Thomas. > > Am 20.02.20 um 08:30 schrieb Sebastian Huber: > > Hello, > > > > On 18/02/2020 16:58, Gedare Bloom wrote: > >>>>> I suggest to use a master COPYING file and use file headers without > >>>>> the > >>>>> full license text. > >>>>> > >>>>> https://lists.rtems.org/pipermail/devel/2018-December/024198.html > >>>> It would be nice to get some feedback here. > >>> > >>> I'm generally ok with just the spdx and copyright statements. > >>> > >> I'm also fine with the master COPYING, spdx-tag, and individual > >> copyrights in files. > >> > >> I should make a note to take a pass over "my" files to relicense them. > >> Does anyone have any script/tools for making that easy? > > > > I talked with Thomas and he is not in favour of a removal of the licence > > text. Not everyone knows what an SPDX-Licence-Identifier is and that > > this means the file is covered by the reference license. The > > BSD-2-Clause license text is quite clear and not long. For us it is > > important that it is very clear that our contributions are without > > warranties and so on. This information should be also clear if files are > > transferred out of the RTEMS context to other projects. > > > > -- > -------------------------------------------- > embedded brains GmbH > Thomas Doerfler > Dornierstr. 4 > D-82178 Puchheim > Germany > email: thomas.doerf...@embedded-brains.de > Phone: +49-89-18 94 741-12 > Fax: +49-89-18 94 741-09 > PGP: Public key available on request. > For our privacy statement, see > https://embedded-brains.de/en/data-privacy-statement/ > _______________________________________________ > devel mailing list > devel@rtems.org > http://lists.rtems.org/mailman/listinfo/devel _______________________________________________ devel mailing list devel@rtems.org http://lists.rtems.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
