Linus: the (GPL 2.0) intented social contract is: “i give you
sourcecode, give me back your changes”
https://dwaves.de/2022/01/31/why-is-it-gnu-linux-and-not-just-linux-linus-talking-about-gpl-v3-vs-gpl-v2-the-better-one-the-social-gpl-contract-is-i-give-you-sourcecode-give-me-back-your-changes-non-free-binary/
if the developer does not want-need changes back GPL 3.0 is also "okayish"
the kernel licensing is also rather... complicated... (with the many
different versions of GPL and LGPL) maybe a user can do a 30min
entertaining sum up video explanation of this ...
*
Linux kernel licensing rules
* The Linux Kernel is provided under the terms of the GNU General
Public License version 2 only (GPL-2.0), as provided in
LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0, with an explicit syscall exception
described in LICENSES/exceptions/Linux-syscall-note, as described in
the COPYING file.This documentation file provides a description of
how each source file should be annotated to make its license clear
and unambiguous. It doesn’t replace the Kernel’s license.The license
described in the COPYING file applies to the kernel source as a
whole, *though individual source files can have a different license
which is required to be compatible with the GPL-2.0*:
GPL-1.0+ : GNU General Public License v1.0 or later
GPL-2.0+ : GNU General Public License v2.0 or later
<https://spdx.org/licenses/GPL-2.0-or-later.html>
https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/LICENSES/preferred/GPL-2.0?h=v5.17-rc2
LGPL-2.0 : GNU Library General Public License v2 only
LGPL-2.0+ : GNU Library General Public License v2 or later
LGPL-2.1 : GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 only
LGPL-2.1+ : GNU Lesser General Public License v2.1 or later
src: https://docs.kernel.org/process/license-rules.html
* actually there is a whole folder “LICENCE” that is shipped with the
kernel sources, which has the following subfolders:
<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES?h=v5.17-rc2>
o deprecated
<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES/deprecated?h=v5.17-rc2>
o dual
<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES/dual?h=v5.17-rc2>
o exceptions
<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES/exceptions?h=v5.17-rc2>
o preferred
<https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/LICENSES/preferred?h=v5.17-rc2>
* *here is a list of all sorts of free licences
https://spdx.org/licenses/ **(RSS Feed)*
<https://lists.spdx.org/g/spdx/rss>
PS: yes iterating over this stuff takes time, anyone ever read the whole
GPL 2.0?
actually did - entertainment factor was... okay
On 2/9/22 10:45, Gard Spreemann wrote:
The Social Contract says clearly:
"Our priorities are our users and free software"
