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authorDave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com>2020-08-14 17:56:25 +0300
committerJonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>2020-09-01 01:36:11 +0300
commit755a2f180c91836ab001ae785d71ebb24250acdf (patch)
tree280b99c9a3bbe42a33b8fa471f5fa608de32c885 /Documentation/process
parent3942ea7a10c93a379cf33710ece8fe0775950368 (diff)
downloadlinux-755a2f180c91836ab001ae785d71ebb24250acdf.tar.xz
Documentation: clarify driver licensing rules
Greg has challenged some recent driver submitters on their license choices. He was correct to do so, as the choices in these instances did not always advance the aims of the submitters. But, this left submitters (and the folks who help them pick licenses) a bit confused. They have read things like Documentation/process/license-rules.rst which says: individual source files can have a different license which is required to be compatible with the GPL-2.0 and Documentation/process/submitting-drivers.rst: We don't insist on any kind of exclusive GPL licensing, and if you wish ... you may well wish to release under multiple licenses. As written, these appear a _bit_ more laissez faire than we've been in practice lately. It sounds like we at least expect submitters to make a well-reasoned license choice and to explain their rationale. It does not appear that we blindly accept anything that is simply GPLv2-compatible. Drivers appear to be the most acute source of misunderstanding, so fix the driver documentation first. Update it to clarify expectations. Signed-off-by: Dave Hansen <dave.hansen@linux.intel.com> Cc: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com> Cc: H. Peter Anvin <h.peter.anvin@intel.com> Cc: Thomas Gleixner <tglx@linutronix.de> Reviewed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org> Link: https://lore.kernel.org/r/20200814145625.8B708079@viggo.jf.intel.com Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Diffstat (limited to 'Documentation/process')
-rw-r--r--Documentation/process/submitting-drivers.rst9
1 files changed, 5 insertions, 4 deletions
diff --git a/Documentation/process/submitting-drivers.rst b/Documentation/process/submitting-drivers.rst
index 74b35bfc6623..3861887e0ca5 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/submitting-drivers.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/submitting-drivers.rst
@@ -60,10 +60,11 @@ What Criteria Determine Acceptance
Licensing:
The code must be released to us under the
- GNU General Public License. We don't insist on any kind
- of exclusive GPL licensing, and if you wish the driver
- to be useful to other communities such as BSD you may well
- wish to release under multiple licenses.
+ GNU General Public License. If you wish the driver to be
+ useful to other communities such as BSD you may release
+ under multiple licenses. If you choose to release under
+ licenses other than the GPL, you should include your
+ rationale for your license choices in your cover letter.
See accepted licenses at include/linux/module.h
Copyright: