Regarding Licensing of hid-tminit and hid-tmff2
RaySlash opened this issue · 7 comments
I would like to know further about why do the repository have GPL3 licensing when the hid-tminit have GPL2 license. Some files do explicitly say that they use GPL2 as mentioned here.
// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
#include <linux/workqueue.h>I was trying to package this for nixpkgs. The GPL2 and GPL3 license differs from one another.
Honestly, pretty much just an oversight on my part. hid-tminit and this project have some common history, hid-tminit is based on some code in this repository that scarburato then made more generic. I believe this was before I added a LICENSE file to the repository.
In any case, the module itself has always had MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") to get access to the HID subsystem. According to the kernel documentation, "GPL" means GPL-2.0-or-later, so the SPDX-License-Identifier comment should actually be GPL-2.0-or-later. I'll push a fix to update the comments. Having the LICENSE file be GPL3 complies with this 2-or-later, and I chose GPL3 more or less on a whim (newer is always better, right?). I'm not particularly interested in licensing stuff, and these decisions are honestly pretty much just based on the MODULE_LICENSE("GPL") macro that is required to make the driver work.
You edited out that GPL3 was deprecated, I don't really have any issues with using GPL2 if that makes packagers' lives easier though I'm curious why you edited that bit out?
I think the point of confusion on their part was GPL3 as an identifier is deprecated in favour of explicitly saying "-or-later" vs "-only". The license itself is still a valid license afaik.
The only reason why I removed that was when I realised that was the case in for the nix and they have made a change in GPL3 to GPL3-only or GPL3-or-later and was asking me to use the non-deprecated license according to nix, if possible. Sorry, that was a confusion on my part which made me edit the post.
I was trying to communicate with nix team when they referred me this. They have deprecated just GPL-3 and one can read more about it here.
Myself, I am no expert in licensing. I have been trying to gather as much information regarding this. I really appreciate your openness towards users like me who can now play and enjoy these sim racing games with FFB on Linux systems. <3 I see that you have made necessary changes to the SPDX-License-Identifier already. In this context, would you be able to help me with whether to choose GPL3-only , GPL3-or-later or GPL2-or-later for the package I would be creating for this repo. I believe that it should be easier to process for reviewers of nix and myself if it was using the same LICENSE throughout the project. Cheers!
PS: edited because of my broken english. Sorry. :)
@RaySlash based on
the SPDX-License-Identifier comment should actually be GPL-2.0-or-later
I assume that's what they intend for the repo?
The only reason why I removed that was when I realised that was the case in for the nix and they have made a change in GPL3 to GPL3-only or GPL3-or-later and was asking me to use the non-deprecated license according to nix, if possible. Sorry, that was a confusion on my part which made me edit the post.
Gotcha, thanks for the explanation.
I believe that it should be easier to process for reviewers of nix and myself if it was using the same LICENSE throughout the project.
Makes sense.
I looked slightly closer at the GPL licenses, at least the SPDX docs at https://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-2.0-or-later.html show the 'or-later' part as something specified on a per-file basis. Not a lawyer, but to me this sounds like for each file you could say "you can use the code in this file in a project distributed with GPL-2.0-or-later", and with this project being GPL3 the requirement is fulfilled. There's no separate 'GPL-2.0-or-later' LICENSE file one could use, as far as I can tell. Still, I can switch the LICENSE file over to GPL2 if that makes things simpler?
the SPDX-License-Identifier comment should actually be GPL-2.0-or-later
I assume that's what they intend for the repo?
I guess? The main point of truth here (in my opinion) is the MODULE_LICENSE macro, which specifies GPL-2.0-or-later, so I think GPL-2.0-or-later for the package would be the most fitting.
I realize this 'or-later' business is complicating things a bit, and using GPL2/3-only would probably be simpler. I don't have any strong opinions on GPL2 vs GPL3 vs possible future versions, but I know some people have and I would like to keep open the possibility of people extending this driver with their preferred version of the license. Sorry for the extra headache.
No worries. That seems to be enough information regarding the license for now. Ill be following the GPL-2-or-later which would effectively mean that the repository can stay GPL-3. I believe that should do it for now. Ill comment here back in case of any queries. Once again, Thank you for your response. 😄 ❤️