Hi Stefano,
On 08/10/2022 01:15, Stefano Stabellini wrote:
From: Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabell...@amd.com>
Remove the extra copy of the GPL license and license copyright headers
from CONTRIBUTING and the top-level COPYING.
Mention of the LICENSES/ directory and also mention the SPDX tag.
SPDX support is still in progress and COPYING files in subdirectories
still need to be updated.
Signed-off-by: Stefano Stabellini <stefano.stabell...@amd.com>
---
Patch new in v3
---
CONTRIBUTING | 150 ++--------------------
COPYING | 351 +--------------------------------------------------
2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 484 deletions(-)
diff --git a/CONTRIBUTING b/CONTRIBUTING
index 6ec146baf0..7b6b03fb96 100644
--- a/CONTRIBUTING
+++ b/CONTRIBUTING
@@ -19,10 +19,6 @@ Most notably:
- tools/xl : LGPL v2.1
- xen/include/public : MIT license
-The COMMON COPYRIGHT NOTICES section of this document contains
-sample copyright notices for the most common licenses used within
-this repository.
-
How about replacing this section with something like:
" See LICENSES/ for a list of licenses and SPDX tags currently used."
When creating new components, new files, or importing code please follow
the conventions outlined below. As a general rule, whenever code using a
license other than GPLv2 is introduced, attention must be drawn to the
@@ -32,20 +28,22 @@ deviation. Any new code must be GPLv2 compatible.
New components
--------------
-When creating new components and directories that contain a
-significant amount of files that are licensed under licenses other
-than GPLv2 or the license specified in the COPYING file, please
-create a new COPYING file in that directory containing a copy of the
-license text and a rationale for using a different license. This helps
-ensure that the license of this new component/directory is maintained
-consistently with the original intention.
+When creating new components and directories that contain a significant
+amount of files that are licensed under licenses other than GPLv2,
+please create a new COPYING file in that directory with the rationale
+for using a different license. This helps ensure that the license of
+this new component/directory is maintained consistently with the
+original intention.
I don't understand why the wording "or the license specified in the
COPYING file" is dropped. To me, the sentence was indicating that it is
not necessary to create a COPYING file in every sub-directory if the
license is not GPLv2 and it matches the license of a parent directory.
Do you plan to remove COPYING completely?
New files
---------
-If specific files that differ from the license in a directory are introduced,
This is fine to drop but ...
-exceptions should be highlighted and discussed in the commit message or cover
-letter introducing the file.
... I think this should be kept because we want to have justification
why the license of a file doesn't match the license of the directory.
+New files should start with a single-line SPDX comment to express the
+license. The following comment and license are recommended:
Someone reading this may think that a new file in libxl wants to be
GPLv2. So I would add in parentheses that the license may be different
in some directory.
Similarly, I think this should be stronger than recommended. The SPDX
should be a *must* and for the license there are effectively little
leeway in which one we could use for existing components.
So how about:
"For instance, if the file is GPLv2, the comment would look like:
/* SPDX-License-Identifier... */
The recommended license of a directory will depend on the COPYING file.
If the new file is using a different license, this should be highlighted
and discussed in the commit message or cover letter introducing the file.
"
Cheers,
--
Julien Grall
