Re: Invalid License ID: GPL-3.0 for arch/mips/boot/dts/loongson/loongson64-2k1000.dtsi

[Al Viro]

On Tue, Apr 20, 2021 at 11:39:04AM +0200, Lukas Bulwahn wrote:
> Dear Qing,
> 
> ./scripts/spdxcheck.py reports:
> 
> arch/mips/boot/dts/loongson/loongson64-2k1000.dtsi: 1:28 Invalid
> License ID: GPL-3.0
> 
> You have contributed this file with commit b1a792601f26 ("MIPS:
> Loongson64: DeviceTree for Loongson-2K1000") to the current
> linux-next.
> 
> Do you intend to contribute this under this non-default license
> (GPL-3.0) for the kernel project or did you simply mean the default
> license GPL-2.0?

Ouch...  That's quite likely to be impossible to distribute, since the
requirements of v2 and v3 are mutually incompatible and quite a bit of
the kernel is under v2-only, not v2-or-any-later-version.

Seriously, folks - talk to lawyers; if the result is *NOT* a mere aggregation
(i.e. is derived work wrt the kernel proper), you are in a copyright violation.

Moreover, if anything in that file is derived from others' work, you can't
use GPL-3.0 unless the terms for everything it's derived from allow
redistribution under GPL-3.0.  Anything derived from others' GPL-2.0 work
(as opposed to GPL-2.0-or-later one) can't be relicensed to GPL-3.0 at
all.