Re: WTF? Re: [PATCH] License cleanup: add SPDX GPL-2.0 license identifier to files with no license

[Alan Cox]

>     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