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docs/manual: always point to the correct license file

PATCH New Yann E. MORIN 3 participants 4 messages Jun 2, 2018 – Jun 17, 2018

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PATCH 1/1 docs/manual: always point to the correct license file

The manual is GPL-2, and points to the COPYING file in the repository. When we do a rendering of the manual for a specific version, that URL is currently always poitning to the latest version of the COPYING file.

If we ever have to change the content of that file (e.g. to add a new exception, more clarifications, a license change, or whatever), then an old manual would point to that newer version, which would then be incorrect.

Include the sha1 of the commit in the URL, so that the manual always point to the tree at the time the manual was rendered, not the time it is consulted. Contrary to the informative text above, use the full sha1, not the shortened one.

Cc Thomas De Schampheleire <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
---
 docs/manual/manual.txt | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
docs/manual/manual.txt +2 -2
index afb53d0482..9d5076047f 100644
@@ -9,8 +9,8 @@ Buildroot {sys:echo $\{BR2_VERSION%%-git*\}} manual generated on {localdate}
 
 The Buildroot manual is written by the Buildroot developers.
 It is licensed under the GNU General Public License, version 2. Refer to the
-http://git.buildroot.org/buildroot/tree/COPYING[COPYING] file in the Buildroot
-sources for the full text of this license.
+http://git.buildroot.org/buildroot/tree/COPYING?id={sys:git rev-parse HEAD}[COPYING]
+file in the Buildroot sources for the full text of this license.
 
 Copyright (C) 2004-2018 The Buildroot developers
 
Signature · 1 line
2.14.1
#1 lore raw

PATCH 1/1 docs/manual: always point to the correct license file

Hello,

Quoted 14 lines · Yann E. MORIN

The manual is GPL-2, and points to the COPYING file in the repository. When we do a rendering of the manual for a specific version, that URL is currently always poitning to the latest version of the COPYING file.

If we ever have to change the content of that file (e.g. to add a new exception, more clarifications, a license change, or whatever), then an old manual would point to that newer version, which would then be incorrect.

Include the sha1 of the commit in the URL, so that the manual always point to the tree at the time the manual was rendered, not the time it is consulted. Contrary to the informative text above, use the full sha1, not the shortened one.

Quoted 6 lines
Cc Thomas De Schampheleire <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
---
 docs/manual/manual.txt | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

To be honest, I am not sure how likely it is that the COPYING file ever changes. The copyright is owned by all the authors of the project, so a license change would be very difficult to do.

But anyway, since the change was there and is pretty simple, I've applied. Thanks!

Thomas

Signature · 3 lines
Thomas Petazzoni, CTO, Bootlin (formerly Free Electrons)
Embedded Linux and Kernel engineering
https://bootlin.com
#2 lore raw

PATCH 1/1 docs/manual: always point to the correct license file

Thomas, All,

On 2018-06-10 16:45 +0200, Thomas Petazzoni spake thusly:

Quoted 22 lines · Yann E. MORIN
Quoted 14 lines

The manual is GPL-2, and points to the COPYING file in the repository. When we do a rendering of the manual for a specific version, that URL is currently always poitning to the latest version of the COPYING file.

If we ever have to change the content of that file (e.g. to add a new exception, more clarifications, a license change, or whatever), then an old manual would point to that newer version, which would then be incorrect.

Include the sha1 of the commit in the URL, so that the manual always point to the tree at the time the manual was rendered, not the time it is consulted. Contrary to the informative text above, use the full sha1, not the shortened one.

Quoted 6 lines
Cc Thomas De Schampheleire <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>
---
 docs/manual/manual.txt | 4 ++--
 1 file changed, 2 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
Quoted 3 lines

To be honest, I am not sure how likely it is that the COPYING file ever changes. The copyright is owned by all the authors of the project, so a license change would be very difficult to do.

Well, that is for cases where we would add a new exclusion clause (e.g. like we have for the patches we carry), or whatever change we may have in this file. Any such change is in fact a license change of the works as a whole, even when such a change is comp[atible with the existing license clauses.

For example, if I were to rewrite the manual entirely from scratch, without re-using parts of the current one, and decided to put that work under CC-BY-SA-3.0 instead of GPL-2.0, then we would add an exception for the manual. That exception would be invalid for manuals rendered from current versions of Buildroot.

For example. ;-]

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

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#3 lore raw

PATCH 1/1 docs/manual: always point to the correct license file

In reply to Yann E. MORIN
Quoted 11 lines
Quoted 1 line
Quoted 1 line
Quoted 1 line
Quoted 1 line

"Yann" == Yann E MORIN <[email protected]> writes:

The manual is GPL-2, and points to the COPYING file in the repository. When we do a rendering of the manual for a specific version, that URL is currently always poitning to the latest version of the COPYING file.

If we ever have to change the content of that file (e.g. to add a new exception, more clarifications, a license change, or whatever), then an old manual would point to that newer version, which would then be incorrect.

Quoted 8 lines

Include the sha1 of the commit in the URL, so that the manual always point to the tree at the time the manual was rendered, not the time it is consulted. Contrary to the informative text above, use the full sha1, not the shortened one.

Cc Thomas De Schampheleire <[email protected]>
Cc Luca Ceresoli <[email protected]>

Committed to 2018.02.x, thanks.

Signature · 1 line
Bye, Peter Korsgaard