linux-kernel - Re: LICENSES: Missing ISC text & possibly a category ("Not recommended" vs. "Preferred licenses")

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Message-ID: <CACna6rw0R7j9pkFnUKnJFcudoZ2n1r1Dig4xSpj+n7e9Qo129w@mail.gmail.com>
Date:   Sun, 29 Apr 2018 12:15:11 +0200
From:   Rafał Miłecki <zajec5@...il.com>
To:     Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc:     Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>,
        LKML <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>,
        Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>,
        DOCUMENTATION <linux-doc@...r.kernel.org>,
        Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Andrew Morton <akpm@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@...b.com>,
        Christoph Hellwig <hch@....de>,
        Russell King <rmk+kernel@...linux.org.uk>,
        Rob Herring <rob.herring@...aro.org>,
        Jonas Oberg <jonas@...e.org>, Joe Perches <joe@...ches.com>,
        linux-xfs@...r.kernel.org,
        Kate Stewart <kstewart@...uxfoundation.org>,
        Florian Fainelli <f.fainelli@...il.com>,
        "Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@...nel.org>
Subject: Re: LICENSES: Missing ISC text & possibly a category ("Not
 recommended" vs. "Preferred licenses")

On 29 April 2018 at 07:26, Greg Kroah-Hartman
<gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 28, 2018 at 11:25:17PM +0200, Rafał Miłecki wrote:
>> Due to some maintainers *preferring* BSD-compatible license for DTS
>> files [0], I was writing mine using ISC. I had no very special reason
>> for it: I was choosing between BSD-2-Clause, MIT and ISC. I've chosen
>> ISC as I read about its "removal of language deemed unnecessary".
>>
>> I took a moment to look at the new SPDX thing and noticed that:
>> 1) File license-rules.rst provides "LICENSES/other/ISC" as an example
>
> Yeah, bad example, we should fix that text up.  Care to send a patch? :)

Sure. I see that license-rules.rst also refers to LICENSES/other/ZLib
which also doesn't exist.

As "other" directory contains only GPL-1.0 and MPL-1.1 I guess one of
these should be referenced.


>> 2) License file LICENSES/other/ISC doesn't exist
>> 3) ISC is listed as an *example* under the "Not recommended licenses"
>
> Yes, please don't use it if at all possible.
>
>> First of all, as ISC is used by some files in the Linux kernel, I
>> think it's worth adding to the LICENSE/*/ISC.
>
> I see it is only used in a very small number of dts files.  Why not just
> use BSD-2-Clause instead?  What do you find in ISC that is not available
> to you with just BSD?

As said, I read about its "removal of language deemed unnecessary". I
assumed that the simpler license text the better.


>> Secondly, it isn't 100% clear to me if ISC is preferred or not
>> recommended. File license-rules.rst suggests the later by listing it
>> as an example for "Not recommended". It's just an example though, so
>> I'm not 100% sure without seeing it in either: "preferred" or "other"
>> directories. Also if anyone finds it "Not recommended", can we get a
>> short explanation why is it so, please?
>
> The license is functionally equalivant to BSD-2, so why would you want
> to add more complexity here and have two licenses that are the same be
> "recommended"?

I don't insist on it, I'm trying to figure out what's the best for the
Linux community.

On the other hand I could ask why do we want more complexity by having
MIT license. It's very similar to the BSD-2-Clause after all. AFAIK
the only minor differences are that:
1) MIT clearly allows sublicensing
2) BSD 2-Clause clearly requires distributing *binaries* with
copyrights + license text

-- 
Rafał