GPLv2 or not GPLv2? (no license bashing)

From: Rolf Eike Beer
Date: Thu Mar 04 2004 - 08:43:59 EST


Hi all,

just digging a bit in the kernel and found some funny things:

-there is a tag only for "GPL v2" but there are some drivers claiming to be
v2 and not using this (patch will follow)
-there are some drivers with the comment ", either version 2 of the License."
in the header. s/either // ? If so, there are some more files where someone
should change MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") to "GPL v2".
-there are some files that have the long warranty warning in the header. This
brings up the question if we should see the mainline kernel as one piece of
software. If we do so we need this warning only once and this copy should be
in the main kernel directory and we should kill the others. The other
question is: when I only write down the names of the authors in the header
and then add MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") or "GPL v2" is this enough licensing
information or is always the long comment needed (would be another nice
trick to shrink tons of files)?
-the LINUX_VERSION_CODE line in drivers/message/fusion/isense.c looks bogus,
the comment says it is for <2.5.0, but the line itself is for <2.3.0. Is
this wanted (fix the comment), bogus (fix the line) or crap (kill it
alltogether).

This are the files where I found "either version 2 of the License.":

arch/arm/mach-integrator/integrator_cp.c
drivers/serial/8250_pnp.c
drivers/serial/8250_pci.c
drivers/input/serio/pcips2.c
drivers/input/serio/sa1111ps2.c

These are some files (there are surely tons of others) with the long warning:

drivers/scsi/3w-xxxx.[ch]
drivers/message/fusion/mptctl.c
drivers/message/fusion/mptbase.[ch]
drivers/message/fusion/mptscsih.c
drivers/message/fusion/isense.c (*)
drivers/message/fusion/mptlan.[ch]
drivers/message/fusion/mptctl.[ch]
drivers/message/fusion/mptscsih.[ch]

Eike
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