Introducing SPDX-License-Identifiers
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Cover letter [U-Boot] [PATCH 0/5] Introducing SPDX-License-Identifiers
Quoted 17 lines · Wolfgang Denk
Like many other projects, U-Boot has a tradition of including big blocks of License headers in all files. This not only blows up the source code with mostly redundant information, but also makes it very difficult to generate License Clearing Reports. An additional problem is that even the same lincenses are referred to by a number of slightly varying text blocks (full, abbreviated, different indentation, line wrapping and/or white space, with obsolete address information, ...) which makes automatic processing a nightmare.
To make this easier, such license headers in the source files will be replaced with a single line reference to Unique Lincense Identifiers as defined by the Linux Foundation's SPDX project [1]. For example, in a source file the full "GPL v2.0 or later" header text will be replaced by a single line:
SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0+
Quoted 8 lines
We use the SPDX Unique Lincense Identifiers here; these are available at [2].
Note: From the legal point of view, this patch is supposed to be only a change to the textual representation of the license information, but in no way any change to the actual license terms. With this patch applied, all files will still be licensed under the same terms they were before.
NVIDIA legal pointed out one potential issue with removing the license headers from files, and simply pointing at a separate license file:
Some licenses include text that states that redistribution in source forms requires the license text (or a list of conditions) to be reproduced. Arguably, reproducing them in the separate license files you've added to the Licenses directory covers this. However, there may be a fine line here, and the complete answer may vary from license to license depending on the exact wording.
Still, I don't think this issue was thought to apply to any of the licenses that you've touched in this series, so we could simply defer this discussion until it's thought to apply in practice, if that ever happens.