[U-Boot] SPDX License status

Wolfgang Denk wd at denx.de
Tue Aug 22 08:39:40 UTC 2017


Dear Tom,

In message <20170821192329.GF17193 at bill-the-cat> you wrote:
> 
> > Do I interpret this correctly that you think we should NOT insert
> > SPDX tags into files imported from Linux (or other projects)?  But
> > how do we keep track of the origin of such files, then?  Git meta
> > data information is not useful for automatic tracking tools (or are
> > there such clever tools available by now?)...
> 
> Generally speaking, Linux Kernel is what we're pulling stuff from, and
> that's the project that doesn't care for SPDX tags being introduced, and
> we know what we sync largely there.  For other projects, some evangelism
> about SPDX might work.

I'm afraid a statement like "we know what we sync" is a bit
shortsighted.  It's simply not sufficient that we know something, we
should be able to prove it.  Even more, we should document it so
nobody will ever have to ask us to prove it.

People using U-Boot in commercial projects have to undergo license
clearing precedures, and for them such documentation is very
important.  What's in our heads is not very useful to them in such a
situation.

My opinion is that we should add proper SPDX tags to all files that
we import and that do not yet contain any such information.

> We leave the dts/dtsi files un-touched from upstream, yes.  Thanks!

What about other files imported from Linux or other projects?  Say
source code?

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
What the gods would destroy they first submit to  an  IEEE  standards
committee.


More information about the U-Boot mailing list