Follow-up Comment #7, task #16666 (group administration): On Tue, Jul 29, 2025 at 09:44:33PM -0400, Nicolas Dato wrote: >> Now, do you understand what 'valid copyright notice' means? > > I thought it meant to write "Copyright" with the year and name, and the > license. But now I'm not sure. > What does it mean?
This is right, and we are on a higher level now---what _year_ and what _name_ should be listed? >> Some files may be under GPLv2-or-later, but I think I've found a few files >> under GPLv2-only; so it looks like the combination is under GPLv2-only. >> Would you like to check that? > > Checking [https://sourceware.org/git/?p=valgrind.git;a=summary the git > repository] I found a mix of licenses, including LGPL and BSD: There is [//www.gnu.org/l/bsd.html no "BSD" license]; by that name, people refer to various licenses, some of them are GPL-compatible and some are not. Then, different versions of the LGPL have different implications on the compatibility, though all versions allow relicensing under the respective license of the GPL, * LGPL v2.1 directly allows relicensing to GPLv2 and any later version of the GPL. * LGPL v3 only allows relicensing to the GPLv3. (We may assume that further versions of the LGPL will allow relicensing at least to the respective versions of the GPL.) > The > [https://sourceware.org/git/?p=valgrind.git;a=blob;f=COPYING;h=d159169d1050894d3ea3b98e1c965c4058208fe1;hb=HEAD > COPYING] file is the GPLv2. This may mean GPLv2-only or GPLv2-or-later, depending on the license notices. > Also I found > [https://sourceware.org/git/?p=valgrind.git;a=blob;f=mpi/libmpiwrap.c;h=2fa1cb8fe0b0daf469376747b59d3c7d4bf3b4fa;hb=HEAD > mpi/libmpiwrap.c] that has a BSD-4-clauses license and says "Notice that the > following BSD-style license applies to this one file only, The rest of > Valgrind is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, > version 2, unless otherwise indicated." > I couldn't find which files are GPLv2-only. valgrind-3.25.1/coregrind/m_oset.c says, //---------------------------------------------------------------------- // This file is based on: // // ANSI C Library for maintenance of AVL Balanced Trees // (C) 2000 Daniel Nagy, Budapest University of Technology and Economics // Released under GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 //---------------------------------------------------------------------- This excludes (or at least may exclude) the later versions of the GPL. > In any case, I don't have the required knowledge to know the license of > valgrind as a whole. This mix of BSD, LGPL, and GPL is beyond my > understanding > of copyright. It didn't come to my mind that a software can have different > files with different licenses. It makes sense, but I hadn't think about it > before. The least permissive license is the GPL; its requirements effectively include the requirements of other licenses used, so the resulting terms are essentially the GPL. > I might conclude that it is GPLv2-only because: > The website says "Valgrind is Open Source / Free Software, and is freely > available under the GNU General Public License, version 2." One posibility I can see is that the developers _distribute_ the package under the GPLv2 and allow other people use it under later versions; but one should ask the developers to be sure. > And because in the mix of licenses I might guess that the GPLv2-only is the > only license compatible with all other options (GPLv2-or-later, LGPL and > BSD). No, all these three cases are compatible with GPLv2-or-later. > I mean, I can't say it is GPLv2-or-later because you found files that are > GPLv2-only. Ok. > And it can't be LGPL nor BSD because following the LGPL or BSD > license is incompatible with GPLv2, but following GPLv2 is compatible with > both. This is incompatibility in some different sense. Following less permissive licenses doesn't make it impossible to follow the GPL. The point is, if people combine software under these licenses, then the GPL is what they have to follow. _______________________________________________________ Reply to this item at: <https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?16666> _______________________________________________ Message sent via Savannah https://savannah.gnu.org/
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