Patch file clarification & Co
v3 cover Patch file clarification & Co
Hi,
several Buildroot users reportedly asked details about how the patches bundled with Buildroot are licensed.
Following the discussion during the latest Buildroot Developer Days, this small series is aimed at clarifying patch licensing in the places where it makes sense: COPYING, the manual and the legal-info output.
This v3 is a refinement of v2 based on the comments received.
The first two patches of v2 have been applied on master in the meanwhile, and are not repeated here.
I also removed the last patch of v2 ("legal-info: explicitly state how patches are licensed"): it will only makes sense after Yann's improvements to save the patches in legal-info will be applied. When this happens, I'll take care to resend it.
Luca Ceresoli (2):
COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
docs/manual: add section about patch licensing
COPYING | 16 ++++++++++++++++ docs/manual/legal-notice.txt | 17 +++++++++++++++-- docs/manual/patch-policy.txt | 2 +- 3 files changed, 32 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
Signature · 1 line
1.9.1
PATCH v3 1/2 COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
---
Changes v2 -> v3:
- Rewrite it entirely based on comments on the mailing list (Yann, Arnout, Thomas, Peter, Steve).
Changes v1 -> v2:
- Rewrite it almost entirely (Arnout, Thomas).
--- COPYING | 16 ++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)
COPYING +16 -0
@@ -1,3 +1,19 @@ +With the exceptions below, Buildroot is distributed under the terms of +the GNU General Public License, reproduced below; either version 2 of +the License, or (at your option) any later version. + +Some files in Buildroot contain a different license statement. Those +files are licensed under the license contained in the file itself. + +Buildroot also bundles patch files, which are applied to the sources +of the various packages. Those patches are not covered by the license +of Buildroot. Instead, they are covered by the license of the software +to which the patches are applied. When said software is available +under multiple licenses, the Buildroot patches are only provided under +the publicly accessible licenses. + +----------------------------------------------------------------- + GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991
Signature · 1 line
1.9.1
PATCH v3 1/2 COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
Dear Luca Ceresoli,
Quoted 9 lines · Luca Ceresoli
Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
Signed-off-by Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>Cc "Yann E. MORIN" <[email protected]>Cc Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <[email protected]>Cc Peter Korsgaard <[email protected]>Cc Thomas Petazzoni <[email protected]>Cc Steve Calfee <[email protected]>
Thanks!
Signature · 3 lines
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Free Electrons Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering http://free-electrons.com
PATCH v3 1/2 COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
In reply to Luca CeresoliLuca, All,
On 2016-02-25 12:51 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
Quoted 9 lines
Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
Signed-off-by Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>Cc "Yann E. MORIN" <[email protected]>Cc Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <[email protected]>Cc Peter Korsgaard <[email protected]>Cc Thomas Petazzoni <[email protected]>Cc Steve Calfee <[email protected]>
Thanks! :-)
Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.
Quoted 38 lines
---
Changes v2 -> v3:
- Rewrite it entirely based on comments on the mailing list (Yann, Arnout, Thomas, Peter, Steve).Changes v1 -> v2:
- Rewrite it almost entirely (Arnout, Thomas).--- COPYING | 16 ++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 16 insertions(+)COPYING +16
-0@@ -1,3 +1,19 @@ +With the exceptions below, Buildroot is distributed under the terms of +the GNU General Public License, reproduced below; either version 2 of +the License, or (at your option) any later version. + +Some files in Buildroot contain a different license statement. Those +files are licensed under the license contained in the file itself. + +Buildroot also bundles patch files, which are applied to the sources +of the various packages. Those patches are not covered by the license +of Buildroot. Instead, they are covered by the license of the software +to which the patches are applied. When said software is available +under multiple licenses, the Buildroot patches are only provided under +the publicly accessible licenses. + +----------------------------------------------------------------- + GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE Version 2, June 1991Signature · 1 line
1.9.1
Signature · 6 lines
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------. | Yann E. MORIN | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: | | +33 662 376 056 | Software Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN | ___ | | +33 223 225 172 `------------.-------: X AGAINST | \e/ There is no | | http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/ | _/*\_ | / \ HTML MAIL | v conspiracy. | '------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'
PATCH v3 1/2 COPYING: add exception about patch licensing
In reply to Luca CeresoliQuoted 12 lines
Quoted 1 line
Quoted 1 line
Quoted 1 line
Quoted 1 line
"Luca" == Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]> writes:
Several people have been asking what is the license of the patches provided by Buildroot. COPYING is the authoritative place to state it.
Signed-off-by Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>Cc "Yann E. MORIN" <[email protected]>Cc Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <[email protected]>Cc Peter Korsgaard <[email protected]>Cc Thomas Petazzoni <[email protected]>Cc Steve Calfee <[email protected]>
Quoted 4 lines
---
Changes v2 -> v3:
- Rewrite it entirely based on comments on the mailing list (Yann, Arnout, Thomas, Peter, Steve).
Committed, thanks.
Signature · 2 lines
Venlig hilsen, Peter Korsgaard
PATCH v3 2/2 docs/manual: add section about patch licensing
In reply to Luca Ceresoli---
Note: although there are only wording improvements since v2, I did not carry the Acked-by from Thomas and Arnout because the topic is delicate and Yann explicitly nacked the patch.
Changes v2 -> v3:
- various wording improvements (Yann, Arnout).
Changes v1 -> v2:
- "they modify" -> "they apply to" (Thomas).
--- docs/manual/legal-notice.txt | 17 +++++++++++++++-- docs/manual/patch-policy.txt | 2 +- 2 files changed, 16 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
docs/manual/legal-notice.txt +15 -2
@@ -134,11 +134,13 @@ Buildroot, with the name used in the manifest files: http://apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.html[ Apache License, version 2.0]; +[[legal-info-buildroot]] === Complying with the Buildroot license Buildroot itself is an open source software, released under the -http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU General Public -License, version 2] or (at your option) any later version. +http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html[GNU General +Public License, version 2] or (at your option) any later version, with +the exception of the package patches detailed below. However, being a build system, it is not normally part of the end product: if you develop the root filesystem, kernel, bootloader or toolchain for a device, the code of Buildroot is only present on the development machine, not
@@ -159,3 +161,14 @@ material that must be redistributed. Keep in mind that this is only the Buildroot developers' opinion, and you should consult your legal department or lawyer in case of any doubt. + +==== Patches to packages + +Buildroot is bundled with a set of patches that are applied to +packages to fix cross-compilation or other issues. See +xref:patch-policy[] for the technical details. + +These patches are effectively a derived work of the package they are +applied to, and so they are released under the same license as the +software they apply to. They are not distributed under the Buildroot +license.
docs/manual/patch-policy.txt +1 -1
@@ -91,7 +91,7 @@ If something goes wrong in the steps _3_ or _4_, then the build fails. === Format and licensing of the package patches Patches are released under the same license as the software they apply -to. +to (see xref:legal-info-buildroot[]). A message explaining what the patch does, and why it is needed, should be added in the header commentary of the patch.
Signature · 1 line
1.9.1
PATCH v3 2/2 docs/manual: add section about patch licensing
Luca, All,
On 2016-02-25 12:51 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
Quoted 7 lines
Signed-off-by Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>Cc "Yann E. MORIN" <[email protected]>Cc Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <[email protected]>Cc Peter Korsgaard <[email protected]>Cc Thomas Petazzoni <[email protected]>Cc Steve Calfee <[email protected]>
Quoted 5 lines
---
Note: although there are only wording improvements since v2, I did not carry the Acked-by from Thomas and Arnout because the topic is delicate and Yann explicitly nacked the patch.
IIRC, I NAKed it because, in case of proprietary packages, the patches can only be available under the FLOSS license of the package they are applied to.
[--SNIP--]
docs/manual/legal-notice.txt material that must be redistributed. · line 174
Quoted 10 lines
+==== Patches to packages
docs/manual/legal-notice.txt +9
-0+ +Buildroot is bundled with a set of patches that are applied to +packages to fix cross-compilation or other issues. See +xref:patch-policy[] for the technical details. + +These patches are effectively a derived work of the package they are +applied to, and so they are released under the same license as the +software they apply to. They are not distributed under the Buildroot +license.
Why not repeat the same sentence as the one from the previous patch?
Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.
Signature · 6 lines
.-----------------.--------------------.------------------.--------------------. | Yann E. MORIN | Real-Time Embedded | /"\ ASCII RIBBON | Erics' conspiracy: | | +33 662 376 056 | Software Designer | \ / CAMPAIGN | ___ | | +33 223 225 172 `------------.-------: X AGAINST | \e/ There is no | | http://ymorin.is-a-geek.org/ | _/*\_ | / \ HTML MAIL | v conspiracy. | '------------------------------^-------^------------------^--------------------'
PATCH v3 2/2 docs/manual: add section about patch licensing
Dear Yann,
Quoted 12 lines · Yann E. MORIN
Luca, All,
On 2016-02-25 12:51 +0100, Luca Ceresoli spake thusly:
Quoted 9 lines
Signed-off-by Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>Cc "Yann E. MORIN" <[email protected]>Cc Arnout Vandecappelle (Essensium/Mind) <[email protected]>Cc Peter Korsgaard <[email protected]>Cc Thomas Petazzoni <[email protected]>Cc Steve Calfee <[email protected]>---
Quoted 7 lines
Quoted 3 lines
Note: although there are only wording improvements since v2, I did not carry the Acked-by from Thomas and Arnout because the topic is delicate and Yann explicitly nacked the patch.
IIRC, I NAKed it because, in case of proprietary packages, the patches can only be available under the FLOSS license of the package they are applied to.
Yup. I hurried to resend the previous patch (affecting COPYING) and didn't quite address your comments on this one. Sorry about that, I did it just now.
Quoted 14 lines
[--SNIP--]
docs/manual/legal-notice.txt material that must be redistributed. · line 174
Quoted 10 lines
+==== Patches to packages
docs/manual/legal-notice.txt +9
-0+ +Buildroot is bundled with a set of patches that are applied to +packages to fix cross-compilation or other issues. See +xref:patch-policy[] for the technical details. + +These patches are effectively a derived work of the package they are +applied to, and so they are released under the same license as the +software they apply to. They are not distributed under the Buildroot +license.Why not repeat the same sentence as the one from the previous patch?
Because this is the manual, and I wanted it to be less legalese and more humanese/hackerese... and I felt like explaining the reason ("patches are effectively a derived work...").
But your suggestion is quite good, and it definitely ensures the manual doesn't contradict COPYING! :) And actually they mostly state the same things, only in a different order and with different wording.
Unless others suggest differently, I'll take your suggestion for v4.
Signature · 4 lines
Luca -- Luca