[oe] [PATCHv2] recipe licenses: update recipe LICENSE fields
Denys Dmytriyenko
denis at denix.org
Wed Oct 20 18:25:09 UTC 2010
On Mon, Oct 11, 2010 at 08:53:41PM +0200, Frans Meulenbroeks wrote:
> 2010/10/11 Maupin, Chase <chase.maupin at ti.com>:
> >
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> > -LICENSE = "GPLv2"
> >> > +LICENSE = "GPLv2+"
> >>
> >> Doe we want this?
> >> I think most GPLv2 code carries the clause:
> >>
> >> "This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> >> modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
> >> as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
> >> of the License, or (at your option) any later version."
> >>
> >> Yet currently virtually all of these have GPL or GPLv2 as LICENSE
> >
> > Frans,
> >
> > My original version of this patch was just changing GPL to GPLv2 for
> > example. But I was asked about whether it should be GPLv2+ which I guess
> > is more indicative of the "or later" clause. Does anyone have good
> > guidance here on how to denote things that are GPLv2 only for now (like
> > git which Linux has a note in the COPYING file about it being GPLv2) and
> > things that are GPLv2 or later version? I'm trying for consistency here
> > but I guess there doesn't seem to be a set policy for how the LICENSE
> > field should be set.
>
> I have no personal preference, but was just noting the difference. How
> do others feel about thi?
>
> BTW: please don't take this personal. I really appreciate you doing
> this, but I also am very aware that it is a boring and non-rewarrding
> job, so we should better aim at getting it right te first time.
Actually, it became a de facto standard in the community to differentiate
between strict GPLv2 and "GPLv2 or later" (I guess we should thank GPLv3 for
this...)
Googling for the "GPLv2+" term will show many OSS projects clarifying it this
way. As well as many project catalogs and listings grouping by "GPLv2+" vs
"GPLv2"...
In OE we've been using this term for some time now. Although, still too many
old recipes use old notations, sometimes even as generic as just plain "GPL"
w/o specifying the exact version. It wasn't as critical before, but these days
OE is being adopted in corporate environments and proper licensing became
quite important.
--
Denys
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