RE: [PATCH] tipc: Add SPDX id lines to source files

[Bird, Tim]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tung Quang Nguyen <tung.quang.nguyen@xxxxxxxx>
> > Can you please explain why you believe the original license of TIPC is GPL-2.0 and not dual-licensed?
> > Do you have evidence outside of the kernel repository and commit history that you are referring to?
> 
> I referred to https://opensource.org/license/bsd-3-clause:
> The first line "Copyright <YEAR> <COPYRIGHT HOLDER>" does not seem look like what describe in current files:
> "* Copyright (c) 2004-2005, 2010-2011, Wind River Systems
>   * Copyright (c) 2020-2021, Red Hat Inc
>  * All rights reserved.
> "

The Copyright line is allowed to be different.  What you see on that web site is a template,
with placeholders for the year and copyright holder.

Take a look at: LICENSES/preferred/BSD-3-Clause in the kernel source tree.
It has a similar template, where the year and owner on the Copyright line are allowed
to be different from one file to another.

> Further more, GPL is mentioned in the paragraph makes me think that it is for GPL-2.0 license only.
> I might be wrong or miss some history of current headers.

The use of the word "Alternatively" in the paragraph mentioning GPL version 2 establishes the
dual licensing status.
 -- Tim

> 
> > The current text in the headers of all these files contains the full, exact text of the BSD-3-Clause
> > license, along with a statement that "Alternatively, this software may be distributed under the terms of the
> > GNU General Public License ("GPL") version 2 as published by the Free Software Foundation."  This has
> > been the case since 2006, when this code was introduced into the kernel source tree*.
> 
> > This is the one of the most unambiguous cases of dual licensing I have encountered while working on
> > these SPDX ID Lines.
>  > -- Tim
> 
> > * Details:
> > Per Lindon, working for Ericsson, introduced most of these files on Jan 2, 2006, with a BSD-3-Clause
> > license.  Most of the files were introduced with commit b97bf3fd8f6a
> > On Jan 11, 2006, a little over a week later, Per clarified that the license was intended to be dual licensed,
> > and added the "Alternatively..." clause.  This was in commit 9ea1fd3c1a15.