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Date:      Fri, 08 Aug 2025 23:51:23 +0200
From:      Steffen Nurpmeso <steffen@sdaoden.eu>
To:        "Simon J. Gerraty" <sjg@juniper.net>
Cc:        <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:  <20250808215123.84IbzAAL@steffen%sdaoden.eu>
In-Reply-To: <6150.1754608305@kaos.jnpr.net>
References:  <202508072215.577MFjpx011932@gitrepo.freebsd.org> <20250807223124.2tsDIUvh@steffen%sdaoden.eu> <6150.1754608305@kaos.jnpr.net>

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Hello Simon, thanks.

Simon J. Gerraty wrote in
 <6150.1754608305@kaos.jnpr.net>:
 |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.

This sounds complicated enough to keep on going with the full
regalia here.

 |> 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

And you were improving there.

 |HTH
 |--sjg
 --End of <6150.1754608305@kaos.jnpr.net>

--steffen
|
|Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
|der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
|einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
|(By Robert Gernhardt)
|
|During summer's humble, here's David Leonard's grumble
|
|The black bear,          The black bear,
|blithely holds his own   holds himself at leisure
|beating it, up and down  tossing over his ups and downs with pleasure
|
|Farewell, dear collar bear



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