[BUG] USB: atm: Licensing conflict

From: Thomas Gleixner
Date: Fri Jan 18 2019 - 05:53:24 EST


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 ...

Thanks,

tglx