[U-Boot] SPDX License status

[Wolfgang Denk]

Dear Tom,

a quick check reveals that we have a very large number (4,300+) files
in the U-Boot tree have no SPDX license tags, or - even worse - no
license information at all.

I think this should be cleaned up.  And I am aware that this would
be a lot of effort, and there will be discussions where this is
needed and where not.

A few observations:

- There are some 600+ "Kconfig" files.

- There are some 500+ ".dts" and ".dtsi" files.  Many of these are
  copied from the Linux kernel.

- There are nearly 100 ".cfg" files.

- There are 1,100+ ".defconfig" files.

- There are nearly 300 "README" files.

- There are 549 ".h" and 246 ".c" files.  Again, many of these are
  copied from the Linux kernel.


Once upon a time there was an agreement that all files in U-Boot
shall have proper license information, and that we will use SPDX
tags for this purpose.  Obviously, this has been largely neglected
in the past.

One of the arguments against changtes that I see coming is this:
"But this file has been copied without changes from project XXX,
and it must not be changed at all so that it is easy to update it
when XXX provides new versions."  In many cases, XXX would be the
Linux kernel.  IIUC this is especially the argument for not touching
the .dts files, and many architecture header files.

But if we set ourself the goal to make License compliance for U-Boot
easy to check, and with largely with automatic tools, then we must
document the licensing of any imported file _withing_that_file_,
and in the format defined for this purpose by U-Boot, i. e. using
SPDX tags.

Do you agree on this?   Or what is your position?

How should we clean up that mess?



Best regards,

Wolfgang Denk

-- 
DENX Software Engineering GmbH,      Managing Director: Wolfgang Denk
HRB 165235 Munich, Office: Kirchenstr.5, D-82194 Groebenzell, Germany
Phone: (+49)-8142-66989-10 Fax: (+49)-8142-66989-80 Email: wd at denx.de
As in certain cults it is possible to kill a process if you know  its
true name.                      -- Ken Thompson and Dennis M. Ritchie