linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH v2] powerpc: Replace the obsolete address of the FSF

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Message-ID: <CAC1cPGx0Chmz3s+rd5AJAPNCuoyZX-AGC=hfp9JPAG_-H_J6vw@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2025 17:02:18 -0400
From: Richard Fontana <rfontana@...hat.com>
To: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc: Christoph Hellwig <hch@...radead.org>, Thomas Huth <thuth@...hat.com>, 
	Madhavan Srinivasan <maddy@...ux.ibm.com>, Michael Ellerman <mpe@...erman.id.au>, 
	Thomas Gleixner <tglx@...utronix.de>, Nicholas Piggin <npiggin@...il.com>, 
	Christophe Leroy <christophe.leroy@...roup.eu>, linuxppc-dev@...ts.ozlabs.org, 
	linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org, kvm@...r.kernel.org, linux-spdx@...r.kernel.org, 
	J Lovejoy <opensource@...ayne.com>
Subject: Re: [PATCH v2] powerpc: Replace the obsolete address of the FSF

On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 3:38 AM Greg Kroah-Hartman
<gregkh@...uxfoundation.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 12:32:57AM -0700, Christoph Hellwig wrote:
> > On Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 09:30:31AM +0200, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > > That's a crazy exception, and one that should probably be talked about
> > > with the FSF to determine exactly what the SPDX lines should be.
> >
> > It is called the libgcc exception and has been around forever for the
> > files in libgcc.a that a lot of these low-level kernel helpers were
> > copied from as the kernel doesn't link libgcc.
>
> Ah, so it would be something like this exception:
>         https://spdx.org/licenses/GCC-exception-2.0.html
> but the wording doesn't seem to match.
>
> I'll let the license lawyers figure this out, thanks for the hint!

This one

 * In addition to the permissions in the GNU General Public License, the
 * Free Software Foundation gives you unlimited permission to link the
 * compiled version of this file with other programs, and to distribute
 * those programs without any restriction coming from the use of this
 * file.  (The General Public License restrictions do apply in other
 * respects; for example, they cover modification of the file, and
 * distribution when not linked into another program.)

is `GCC-exception-2.0`

while this one:

 *    As a special exception, if you link this library with files
 *    compiled with GCC to produce an executable, this does not cause
 *    the resulting executable to be covered by the GNU General Public License.
 *    This exception does not however invalidate any other reasons why
 *    the executable file might be covered by the GNU General Public License.

does not seem to be in the SPDX exception list. It is very similar to
`GNU-compiler-exception` except it specifically mentions GCC instead
of saying "a GNU compiler".

Alerting Jilayne by cc.

Also, and a question I remember wondering about a while ago, I don't
know how SPDX treats situations where, as apparently in this case,
more than one exception applies to a license grant. I don't think SPDX
syntax allows `GPL-2.0-or-later WITH GCC-exception-2.0 WITH
{some-additional-SPDX-exception}` or
`GPL-2.0-or-later WITH GCC-exception-2.0 AND {some
additional-SPDX-exception}`, i.e. I think SPDX assumes that only one
exception will ever apply in a given case, although the `AdditionRef-`
construct provides one way of dealing with this.

Richard