Re: [BUG] USB: atm: Licensing conflict

From: Greg KH
Date: Fri May 24 2019 - 04:34:12 EST


On Fri, Jan 18, 2019 at 11:53:18AM +0100, Thomas Gleixner wrote:
> The addition of SPDX identifiers to the USB subsystem introduced a license
> conflict. The driver is dual licensed under GPL v2 and BSD 2 clause
> according to the license texts in the file. But even the GPL v2 licensing
> of this driver is ambiguous:
>
> * This software is available to you under a choice of one of two
> * licenses. You may choose to be licensed under the terms of the GNU
> * General Public License (GPL) Version 2, available from the file
> * COPYING in the main directory of this source tree, or the
>
> This points to the kernel license which is GPL v2 only.
>
> * BSD license below:
> *
> * Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
> * modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
> * are met:
> * 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
> * notice [unmodified], this list of conditions, and the following
> * disclaimer.
> * 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
> * notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
> * documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
> *
> * THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
> * ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
> * IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
> * ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
> * FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
> * DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
> * OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
> * HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
> * LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
> * OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
> * SUCH DAMAGE.
>
> This is clearly a BSD 2 Clause license and not BSD 3 Clause
>
> * GPL license :
> * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
> * modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
> * as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2
> * of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
>
> And here the license is GPL V2 or later.
>
> Some detective work is due ...

Dug into this now, patches are sent to resolve this, thanks for letting
me know.

greg k-h