Re: [patch V4 02/11] LICENSES: Add the GPL 2.0 license

From: Philippe Ombredanne
Date: Wed Dec 06 2017 - 16:00:57 EST


On Tue, Dec 5, 2017 at 8:36 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman
<gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 04, 2017 at 10:19:29PM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
>> Add the full text of the GPL 2.0 license to the LICENSES directory. It was
>> copied directly from the COPYING file in the kernel source tree as it
>> differs from the public available version of the license in various places
>> including the FSF.
>>
>> Philippe did some research on the GPL2.0 history:
>>
>> There is NO trustworthy version of an official GPL 2.0 text: the FSF
>> official texts are all fubar (if only in small and subtle ways). The FSF
>> texts should be authoritative, but then which one? They published more
>> GPL 2.0 versions than most. So we would be hard pressed to blame SPDX or
>> the OSI for having their own minor variant.
>>
>> Then in digging further, I found the ONE true original GPL with a file
>> time stamp on June 2 1991, 01:50 (AM?, PM? unknown time zone?) ! in an
>> old GCC archive.
>>
>> For the posterity and everyone's enjoyment I have built a git history
>> of GPL 2.0 Mark1 to Mark6
>>
>> See https://github.com/pombredanne/gpl-history/commits/master/COPYING
>>
>> I also added a shorter history of the Linux COPYING text. The first
>> version in Linus's git tree is based on the very fine and well tuned GPL
>> 2 Mark4, the first fully Y2K compliant version of the GPL 2, as you can
>> see from the diffs with the former Mark3: that was dangerously stuck in
>> the last century.
>>
>> The current version in is based on a rare GPL 2.0 Mark5.1 aka "Franklin
>> St", that I do not have in my history yet and spells "Franklin St."
>> rather than "Franklin Street." Therefore there is likely another GPL 2.0
>> version between Mark4 and Mark5 that I have yet to find and may not have
>> been caught by the archive.org spiders. Here help and patches welcomed:
>> this is likely an important missing link.
>>
>> Further information about this archaelogical research;
>>
>> http://lkml.kernel.org/r/CAOFm3uEzRMf261+O-Nm+9HDoEn9RbFjH=5J9i1C2GgMUg2G4LA@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>
>> Add the required tags for reference and tooling.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>

Thomas you have my cheerful review, this digging was quite fun in fact
and I am not half proud of this ending in the kernel doc: thank you.

Reviewed-by: Philippe Ombredanne <pombredanne@xxxxxxxx>

--
Cordially
Philippe Ombredanne