Re: [PATCH] LICENSES: Explicitly allow SPDX-FileCopyrightText

[Joe Perches]

On Wed, 2026-01-07 at 20:35 +0100, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> On Wed, Jan 07, 2026 at 10:40:11AM -0800, Joe Perches wrote:
> > On Wed, 2026-01-07 at 18:12 +0100, Krzysztof Kozlowski wrote:
> > > Sources already have SPDX-FileCopyrightText (~40 instances) and more
> > > appear on the mailing list, so document that it is allowed.  On the
> > > other hand SPDX defines several other tags like SPDX-FileType, so add
> > > checkpatch rule to narrow desired tags only to two of them - license and
> > > copyright.  That way no new tags would sneak in to the kernel unnoticed.
> > 
> > I find no value in this tag.  I think it should be discouraged.
> > 
> > How is it different or more useful than a typical Copyright or © symbol ?
> 
> It's easier to parse automatically and put into other places (like a
> software bill of materials).
> 
> I don't like it all that much either, as really, it doesn't mean much
> (go talk to a lawyer for details), but it's already in our tree so we
> might as well document it...

Document it doesn't mean encourage it.