Date: Thu, 7 Aug 2025 16:11:45 -0700 From: "Simon J. Gerraty" <sjg@juniper.net> To: <src-committers@FreeBSD.org>, <dev-commits-src-all@FreeBSD.org>, <dev-commits-src-main@FreeBSD.org> Subject: Re: git: 5c4d1c85847d - main - Replace license with just SPDX BSD-2-Clause Message-ID: <6150.1754608305@kaos.jnpr.net> In-Reply-To: <20250807223124.2tsDIUvh@steffen%sdaoden.eu> References: <202508072215.577MFjpx011932@gitrepo.freebsd.org> <20250807223124.2tsDIUvh@steffen%sdaoden.eu>
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Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu> wrote: > | Replace license with just SPDX BSD-2-Clause >=20 > That is very interesting! And .. are you really sure this is > right with BSD etc licenses which explicitly require that the > license text is included? > So i looked and found [1] which says I checked with one of our IP lawyers who said just the SPDX tag "should" suffice, but best to remove the verbage that conflicts. > SPDX IDs are intending to express information about > licenses. Copyright notices =E2=80=90 statements about who owns the > copyright in a file or project =E2=80=90 are outside the scope of SPDX > short-form IDs. > Therefore, you should not remove or modify existing copyright > notices in files when adding an SPDX ID. Except that in this case the verbage I removed is sufficiently different from the text of https://spdx.org/licenses/BSD-2-Clause.html as to potentially trigger arguments - so better safe that sorry, and I hate the idea of a file which is 90% license, which is why I had that abbreviated version in the first place. If the lawyer says I can get away with just the tag, that works for me. > However i am sure you do not do something like this "just like > that", and would be very interested -- it would be nice to be able > to vaporise the file header -- i always have that pitfall moment > when i look into Plan9 / 9front source code, which then simply > starts off (and very often with "#include <u.h>", just like that). ISTR the original BSD convention was to not waste space on copyrights in tiny files, I was forced into putting licenses on everything by some of my consulting clients back in the '90s HTH --sjg
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