[U-Boot] SPDX License IDs - moving forward

[Meier, Roger]

Hi Wolfgang!

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Wolfgang Denk [mailto:wd at denx.de]
> Sent: Donnerstag, 10. Oktober 2013 12:49
> To: u-boot at lists.denx.de
> Cc: Meier, Roger
> Subject: SPDX License IDs - moving forward
>
> Hallo,
>
> while working on converting more files to SPDX license IDs and
> discussing the whole approach with the SPDX team, a few ideas crossed
> my mind.  It would be very helpful if I gould get some feedback on
> these:
>
>
> I wonder if we should not take the idea even a step further.  So far
> we only focus on the license terms of the source code.  However,
> U-Boot is very flexible to configure, and as is it is not trvial to
> tell if a specific piece of code actually gets linked into the final
> product.  I wonder if we should turn the comment as we have it now
> into actual code, i. e. into a preprocessor macro that compiles the
> license ID into the generated object file (probably into a separate
> section so you can decide whether or not you want to include this
> ieven into the final binary image).  We could easily make the linker
> combine identical tags into a single entry, to the total memory
> overhead would be minimal.
>
> This would allow to easily find out which components have actually
> been built into the final product, so which licenses apply tho that.
> You don't have to bother about license terms for code that you don't
> actually use in your product, right?
Getting a report with files + licenses as build output would by awesome!
Part of binary and a license command would a very nice supplement.

>
>
> And there is another topic that's on my mind.  License terms for the
> source code are one thing, but there are is additional information
> that may be relevant when releasing a product, for example (known)
> patents or other intellectual property rights that may apply.  For
> example, despite the fact that all code to implement FAT/VFAT file
> system support is licensed under GPL-2.0+ in U-Boot, we know that
> Microsoft holds patents on parts of that technology, which may become
> an issue if you include FAT/VFAT support in your product.
>
> Should we also add similar tags to list known patents etc.?  for
> example, the FAT code could be augmented like that:
>
> SPDX-Patent-Notice: US5,579,517 US5,758,352 US5,745,902 US6,286,013 EP0618550
>
> [Of course I'm not sure if SPDX would cover such an entry; I'm just
> interested in feedback for the general idea.]
I really like this idea, had it also within my ideabox.

A perfect way to simplify this topic as well and I think it fits to the
idea of Software Package Data Exchange. If SPDX people agree on patent
info as part of further SPDX the tag name fits perfectly otherwise
just use License-Notice as a tag?

>
> Again, I tent to make this a preprocessor macro, so you can easily
> determine which (known) patents may apply to your final product.
>
>
> What do you think?  Does this make sense to you?
Yes!

The other thing within my ideabox is a SPDX-Copyright-Text tag.
What about that?

-roger