linux-kernel - Re: [PATCH] docs: mention MIT license as a compatible license with GPLv2

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Message-ID: <dfb7415f-130f-4581-88b9-ee18c9ef8518@infradead.org>
Date: Thu, 24 Jul 2025 10:29:56 -0700
From: Randy Dunlap <rdunlap@...radead.org>
To: Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@...e.com>, Greg KH <gregkh@...uxfoundation.org>
Cc: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@....net>, workflows@...r.kernel.org,
 linux-doc@...r.kernel.org, linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH] docs: mention MIT license as a compatible license with
 GPLv2



On 7/24/25 3:41 AM, Aditya Garg wrote:
> 
> 
> On 24/07/25 4:08 pm, Greg KH wrote:
>> On Thu, Jul 24, 2025 at 10:03:41AM +0000, Aditya Garg wrote:
>>> MIT is a widely used permissive free software license that is compatible
>>> with the GPLv2 license. This change adds it to the list of compatible
>>> licenses with GPLv2 in the kernel documentation.
>>
>> No, please don't.  This isn't a proper place for talking about the
>> different license interactions.
> 
> Ohk
> 
>>
>>>
>>> Signed-off-by: Aditya Garg <gargaditya08@...e.com>
>>> ---
>>>  Documentation/process/1.Intro.rst | 6 +++---
>>>  1 file changed, 3 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
>>>
>>> diff --git a/Documentation/process/1.Intro.rst b/Documentation/process/1.Intro.rst
>>> index 25ca49f7a..c3465e3aa 100644
>>> --- a/Documentation/process/1.Intro.rst
>>> +++ b/Documentation/process/1.Intro.rst
>>> @@ -235,9 +235,9 @@ code must be compatible with version 2 of the GNU General Public License
>>>  (GPLv2), which is the license covering the kernel distribution as a whole.
>>>  In practice, that means that all code contributions are covered either by
>>>  GPLv2 (with, optionally, language allowing distribution under later
>>> -versions of the GPL) or the three-clause BSD license.  Any contributions
>>> -which are not covered by a compatible license will not be accepted into the
>>> -kernel.
>>> +versions of the GPL), the three-clause BSD license or the MIT license.
>>
>> You forgot a ',' anyway :(
> 
> While it is no longer relevant, I wonder where you wanted the comma. Maybe you meant "the three-clause BSD license, or the MIT license"?

In general we accept the use of the series/serial/Oxford comma (", or") or not using it,
but I suppose that $maintainers can determine otherwise.

from Documentation/doc-guide/contributing.rst:

 - The question of whether a period should be followed by one or two spaces
   is not to be debated in the context of kernel documentation.  Other
   areas of rational disagreement, such as the "Oxford comma", are also
   off-topic here.

-- 
~Randy