linux-kernel - Re: Kernel modules under new copyleft licence : (was Re: [PATCH v2] module.h: add copyleft-next >= 0.3.1 as GPL compatible)

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Message-ID: <20170517165502.b6jqdcmkgz6iyau2@thunk.org>
Date:   Wed, 17 May 2017 12:55:02 -0400
From:   Theodore Ts'o <tytso@....edu>
To:     "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...nel.org>
Cc:     Alan Cox <alan@...ux.intel.com>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...ux-foundation.org>,
        AKASHI Takahiro <takahiro.akashi@...aro.org>,
        Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>, torvalds@...ux.intel.com,
        Rusty Russell <rusty@...tcorp.com.au>,
        Linux Kernel Mailing List <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        ciaran.farrell@...e.com, christopher.denicolo@...e.com,
        fontana@...rpeleven.org, copyleft-next@...ts.fedorahosted.org,
        One Thousand Gnomes <gnomes@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
        Paul Bolle <pebolle@...cali.nl>, Peter Anvin <hpa@...or.com>,
        Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>
Subject: Re: Kernel modules under new copyleft licence : (was Re: [PATCH v2]
 module.h: add copyleft-next >= 0.3.1 as GPL compatible)

On Wed, May 17, 2017 at 01:27:02AM +0200, Luis R. Rodriguez wrote:
> 
> I have done the work though, however I can understand this might mean others
> down the chain might need to burn some ink on this. Even if our position is:
> 
> "we rather avoid any attorneys burning any ink and we prefer to just always
> require this 'dual or' language even for licenses which corporate attorneys
> have vetted as compatible"
> 
> Wouldn't that still require a bit of ink?

What ink?  As far as the Kernel is concerned, it's dual-licensed GPLv2
and copyleft-next.  So for all Kernel users there isn't any lawyer ink
at all.

The lawyer ink comes from contributors being willing to let their code
contributions being dual-licensed with GPL2 plus a potentially
unfamiliar, new copyright license.  But that's overhead that
contributors would have to deal with in either case.  In fact, if you
try to go single-license copyleft-next, the contributors' corporate
lawyer will need to figure out the GPLv2 compatibility issue, so it's
*more* overhead with the proposed single-copyright license approach.

I'm not sure I understand what you believe to be the benefit of having
kernel modules solely licensed under copyleft-next and relying on
lawyers to say, "no really, it's GPLv2 compatible"?  Could you say
more about that?

	   	    	    	       - Ted