linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH 03/16] staging: m57621-mmc: delete driver from the tree.

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Message-ID: <20190402112735.GA20395@kroah.com>
Date:   Tue, 2 Apr 2019 13:27:35 +0200
From:   Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
To:     George Hilliard <thirtythreeforty@...il.com>
Cc:     devel@...verdev.osuosl.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org,
        Matthias Brugger <matthias.bgg@...il.com>,
        NeilBrown <neil@...wn.name>,
        Christian Lütke-Stetzkamp <christian@...mp.de>,
        Nishad Kamdar <nishadkamdar@...il.com>,
        Sergej Perschin <ser.perschin@...il.com>,
        John Crispin <blogic@...nwrt.org>
Subject: Re: [PATCH 03/16] staging: m57621-mmc: delete driver from the tree.

On Tue, Apr 02, 2019 at 06:16:47AM -0500, George Hilliard wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 2, 2019, 5:32 AM Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
> wrote:
> 
> > The license text in this driver is "interesting" and not really obvious
> > that it is supposed to be able to be distributed in the kernel source
> > tree.  Yes, the MODULE_LICENSE() text says GPL, so it's probably ok, but
> > to be safe, I am deleting this driver.  I will be glad to add it back if
> > the license is properly sorted out, but for now, this isn't worth the
> > potential risk, I should have never taken it in the first place.
> >
> 
> So, for what it's worth, this driver has an obvious heritage of having been
> modified from the main Mediatek MMC driver. Now, of course it's *possible*
> to distribute GPL-incompatible changes to a GPL program, but the only
> *compliant* way to distribute these changes would have been the GPL.
> 
> So there's a very good chance that it's intended to be GPL.  (Which is
> good, because I need this driver!)  I suppose we need to reach out to the
> original contributor.

I agree that the intent is probably GPL, especially given the
MODULE_LICENSE string, and in general how mediatek handles their kernel
code (they properly opensource it all.)  I think that someone got a
little bit "heavy handed" on the comment blocks at the top of all of
these files though, and that is what makes this whole thing questionable
and needs to be addressed.

thanks,

greg k-h