From: Luis R. Rodriguez <mcgrof@...>
Subject: New 'Changes-licensed-under' tag introduced for Linux-wireless
 [3]Date: Sep 27, 2:00 pm 2007

Our guidelines for patches [1] for Linux-wireless has been updated.
One section asks Linux-wireless developers to subscribe to the patch
guideline wiki page (section 2) and another which introduces the new
'Changes-licensed-under' (section 10).

Here I'll cover the new 'Changes-licensed-under' tag but please refer
to the link and subscribe to the page for the complete details and for
further changes.

--

Based on the new guidelines posted by the SFLC on ''Maintaining
Permissive-Licensed Files in a GPL-Licensed Project: Guidelines for
Developers'' [2], specifically section 5, we are introducing a new tag
for use with patches which deal with files licensed under permissive
licenses (BSD, ISC) on Linux wireless in our larger GPL project, the
Linux kernel. The tag is Changes-licensed-under and can be used by
developers to clarify the intended license for their patch on
permissive licensed files. It is clear that not all changes qualify a
patch author for Copyright but a lot of patches do qualify an author
for copyright. If you want crystal clear details of what constitutes
as a copyrightable change, at least within the US and the EU, you can
refer to SFLC's ''Originality Requirements under U.S. and E.U.
Copyright Law'' [3].

Although some developers have a practice of implying their patches for
a permissive licensed file abides by the respective permissive license
of the file being patched, and although some changes are obviously not
copyrightable, we would like to ''err on the side of caution'', take
the advice from SFLC, and introduce Changes-licensed-under in order to
help the BSD family reap benefits of our contributions to permissive
licensed files.

The Changes-licensed-under tag should be put before the Signed-off-by
tag. Since this tag is used to cover changes under permissive licenses
example of possible licenses are 3-Clause-BSD, and ISC. If you are
making changes to multiple permissive licensed files then please
specify which license covers what files.

--

For examples of using this tag please refer to the guidelines.

[1] http://linuxwireless.org/en/developers/SubmittingPatches [4]
[2] http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/gpl-non-gpl-collaboration.html [5]
[3] http://www.softwarefreedom.org/resources/2007/originality-requirements.html [6]

  Luis
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From: Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@...>
Subject: Re: New 'Changes-licensed-under' tag introduced for Linux-wireless
 [6]Date: Sep 27, 2:09 pm 2007

On Thu, 27 Sep 2007 14:00:09 -0400
"Luis R. Rodriguez" <mcgrof@gmail.com> wrote:

> Our guidelines for patches [1] for Linux-wireless has been updated.
> One section asks Linux-wireless developers to subscribe to the patch
> guideline wiki page (section 2) and another which introduces the new
> 'Changes-licensed-under' (section 10).
> 
> Here I'll cover the new 'Changes-licensed-under' tag but please refer
> to the link and subscribe to the page for the complete details and for
> further changes.
> 

No, please don't down this legal rat hole. It would cause bullshit like
people submitting dual licensed patches to the scheduler or GPL only
patches to the ath5k or ACPI code.

Instead, add a section to Documentation/SubmittingPatches that clearly
states that all changes to a file are licensed under the same license
as the original file. I don't feel legally qualified to write the correct
wording.


-- 
Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org>

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From: Krzysztof Halasa <khc@...>
Subject: Re: New 'Changes-licensed-under' tag introduced for Linux-wireless
 [6]Date: Sep 27, 4:17 pm 2007

Stephen Hemminger <shemminger@linux-foundation.org> writes:

> No, please don't down this legal rat hole. It would cause bullshit like
> people submitting dual licensed patches to the scheduler or GPL only
> patches to the ath5k or ACPI code.

Precisely. Signed-off-by means the patch author already authorized
the patch to be applied. With the patch merged the conditions still
in the file (project etc) apply and not some obscure email tags.

If someone really wants to change licencing conditions then the
licence conditions in the source code must be changed.

> Instead, add a section to Documentation/SubmittingPatches that clearly
> states that all changes to a file are licensed under the same license
> as the original file. I don't feel legally qualified to write the correct
> wording.

Current Documentation/SubmittingPatches:
        Developer's Certificate of Origin 1.1

        By making a contribution to this project, I certify that:

        (a) The contribution was created in whole or in part by me and I
            have the right to submit it under the open source license
                                        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
            indicated in the file; or
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
-- 
Krzysztof Halasa
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