Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 8 Nov 2017 17:19:38 +0000 | From | Alan Cox <> | Subject | Re: WTF? Re: [PATCH] License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license |
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> By default all files without license information are under the default > license of the kernel, which is GPL version 2.
Which is factually incorrect.
They are under a licence that is at least as permissive as GPL v2. However they may be under a more permissive licence and as you are not the rightsholder you don't have the right to relicence them mroe restrictvely.
For example
I find a reference piece of code whose author says it is 'too trivial to copyright'. I (not the author0 place that code in the kernel. The licence on that code is still 'too trivial to copyright' (by estoppel). That's GPL 2 compliant but it is *NOT* GPL.
As anyone can contribute third party code that is GPL compliant legitimately you can't assume any unmarked code is GPL, merely 'at least GPL'.
Alan
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