Formal license ambiguity in arch/arm/boot/dts/sun?i-a*.dts

On Tue, Sep 02, 2014 at 04:42:19PM +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:

Hi,

On 09/02/2014 02:51 PM, Maxime Ripard wrote:

quoted

On Tue, Sep 02, 2014 at 02:35:18PM +0200, Hans de Goede wrote:

quoted

quoted

So I guess like Chen-Yu suggested that we should change the license of
the DTSI first, and then the DTS. Otherwise, it wouldn't work very
well, I guess you can't really relicense a GPL-only file.

IANAL, but mixing MIT (which I suggest use as the other license) and GPL
files in one binary (the generated dtb file) is fine AFAIK, this happens
all the time. The resulting binary is simple GPL licensed. So it would
make sense to start with dual licensing new boards right away even before
the dtsi has been relicensed. It won't make any practical difference
until the dtsi is relicensed, but it means less work later on.

So you're allowed to licence derivative work of a GPL-licenced file
under both the GPL and another licence?

Since the board files do not start as copies of the dtsi file, but
merely include it they are not derivative (IANAL), the resulting
dtb file however very much is and as such is GPL only.

My understanding was that inclusion does qualify as a derivative
work. Otherwise we wouldn't need either the LGPL or the GCC licence
exception.

-- 
Maxime Ripard, Free Electrons
Embedded Linux, Kernel and Android engineering
http://free-electrons.com
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