On Sat, 09 Oct 2021 18:51:37 +0000, John Scott wrote: > It includes a statement that the license is GPL 2 only with system > calls note (basically a GPL exception), and it's already distributed as > part of the kernel, so surely it's free. However, I'm having trouble > figuring out what to put in my DEP-5 copyright file. > > Linux Git shows that this file has had too many contributors to > enumerate, and in fact it's been in Linux since before 2.6.12-rc2, > which is the oldest version in the main repo's history. > > Documenting everyone that has ever contributed to this file would take > an immense amount of time and is beyond practical.
The relevant question in my understanding is (in general) not "Who are the contributors?" but "Who are the copyright holders?" [0] If the file is taken from the kernel source I'd take a look at the copyright file of source:linux-signed-amd64. Taking /usr/share/doc/linux-image-5.10.0-8-amd64/copyright on my disk, ch9.h doesn't seem to be mentioned, so it would seem to fall under the general clause: | Files: * | Copyright: 1991-2012 Linus Torvalds and many others | License: GPL-2 Cheers, gregor [0] Unless there are no copyright holder, then authors can be assumed to be copyright holders, following the Geneva Convention. - But that's not the case for the kernel. -- .''`. https://info.comodo.priv.at -- Debian Developer https://www.debian.org : :' : OpenPGP fingerprint D1E1 316E 93A7 60A8 104D 85FA BB3A 6801 8649 AA06 `. `' Member VIBE!AT & SPI Inc. -- Supporter Free Software Foundation Europe `- NP: Pat Metheny, B.B. King, Dave Brubeck: Pat Metheny & Heath Brothers /
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