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

[Jonas Oberg]

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: Jonas Oberg <jonas@xxxxxxxx>

-- 
Jonas Öberg
Executive Director

FSFE e.V. - keeping the power of technology in your hands. Your
support enables our work, please join us today http://fsfe.org/join