linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] drm/tidss: Add MIT license along with GPL-2.0

lists.openwall.net		lists / announce owl-users owl-dev john-users john-dev passwdqc-users yescrypt popa3d-users / oss-security kernel-hardening musl sabotage tlsify passwords / crypt-dev xvendor / Bugtraq Full-Disclosure linux-kernel linux-netdev linux-ext4 linux-hardening linux-cve-announce PHC
Open Source and information security mailing list archives

Hash Suite: Windows password security audit tool. GUI, reports in PDF.

[<prev] [next>] [<thread-prev] [day] [month] [year] [list]

Message-ID: <e5ea93f7-b21b-8a8e-bc74-f4d81fa27b8d@ti.com>
Date: Mon, 16 Sep 2024 18:47:36 +0530
From: Devarsh Thakkar <devarsht@...com>
To: Laurent Pinchart <laurent.pinchart@...asonboard.com>
CC: <jyri.sarha@....fi>, <tomi.valkeinen@...asonboard.com>,
        <airlied@...il.com>, <daniel@...ll.ch>,
        <maarten.lankhorst@...ux.intel.com>, <mripard@...nel.org>,
        <tzimmermann@...e.de>, <dri-devel@...ts.freedesktop.org>,
        <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>, <praneeth@...com>, <nm@...com>,
        <vigneshr@...com>, <r-ravikumar@...com>, <j-choudhary@...com>,
        <grandmaster@...klimov.de>, <caihuoqing@...du.com>,
        <ahalaney@...hat.com>, <cai.huoqing@...ux.dev>,
        <colin.i.king@...il.com>, <javierm@...hat.com>,
        <dmitry.baryshkov@...aro.org>, <geert+renesas@...der.be>,
        <dakr@...hat.com>, <u.kleine-koenig@...gutronix.de>, <robh@...nel.org>,
        <sam@...nborg.org>, <simona.vetter@...ll.ch>,
        <ville.syrjala@...ux.intel.com>, <wangxiaojun11@...wei.com>,
        <yuanjilin@...rlc.com>, <yuehaibing@...wei.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH] drm/tidss: Add MIT license along with GPL-2.0

Hi Laurent,

Thanks for the quick review.

On 13/09/24 13:54, Laurent Pinchart wrote:
> Hi Devarsh,
> 
> On Thu, Sep 12, 2024 at 10:41:42PM +0530, Devarsh Thakkar wrote:
>> Modify license to include dual licensing as GPL-2.0-only OR MIT license for
>> tidss display driver. This allows other operating system ecosystems such as
>> Zephyr and also the commercial firmwares to refer and derive code from this
> 
> GPL-2.0 isn't incompatible with "commercial". I think you mean
> "proprietary" here.
> 

Yes, GPL-2.0 is not incompatible to commercial but there is an enforecement
that derivative code needs to be GPL-2.0 licensed which may not fit well for
projects which are not using GPL-2.0 license. But yes MIT will also help
proprietary code, so I agree it is good to mention the same in commit message.

>> display driver in a more permissive manner.
> 
> How do you envision that to work ? Zephyr doesn't have KMS, so you can't
> use the driver as-is. What exactly would TI want to use from the Linux
> kernel driver ?
> 

Not the DRM/KMS part, but the tidss specific display controller programming is
the main point of interest. For e.g. At this point, mostly I see that the TI
customers are interested to re-use/derive code from u-boot tidss driver [1]
which is quite simple and use it in their test application or RTOS based
offerring which is non-GPL code. Since their test application has much more
code apart from the display part, which is non-GPL, they can't use GPL license.

Now since the u-boot tidss driver is derived from kernel tidss driver, my
understanding was that we need to change the license of kernel tidss driver
first before changing the u-boot tidss driver.

> Personally, there's a reason why I contribute code to the kernel under
> the GPL-2.0 license, it is to make sure the code will remain open. While
> I can accept other licenses on a case-by-case basis, I don't like the
> casual approach of this patch that seem (to me) to imply that the
> license is a mere detail. For a start I would like to know what
> "commercial firmwares" you're thinking about.
> 

Understood, let me know if above information suffice or any further
information is needed.

[1]:
https://gitlab.com/u-boot/u-boot/-/blob/master/drivers/video/tidss/tidss_drv.c?ref_type=heads

Regards
Devarsh