From 9ed95129ffcabbde564b40ffbbf9c26e8702d858 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Greg Kroah-Hartman Date: Wed, 4 Oct 2017 16:17:55 +0200 Subject: [PATCH] Documentation: Add a file explaining the Linux kernel license enforcement policy MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit This adds a short document describing the views of how the Linux kernel community feels about enforcing the license of the kernel. Acked-by: Al Viro Acked-by: Alex Elder (Linaro) Acked-by: Andrea Arcangeli Acked-by: Andy Gross Acked-by: Aneesh Kumar K.V Acked-by: Anna Schumaker Acked-by: Ard Biesheuvel Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann Acked-by: Arvind Yadav Acked-by: Bart Van Assche Acked-by: Bhumika Goyal Acked-by: Bjorn Andersson Acked-by: Borislav Petkov Acked-by: Christian Borntraeger Acked-by: Christian König Acked-by: Christophe JAILLET Acked-by: Chuck Lever Acked-by: Colin Ian King Acked-by: Daniel Borkmann Acked-by: Daniel Lezcano Acked-by: Daniel Vetter Acked-by: Darrick J. Wong (Oracle) Acked-by: Darrick J. Wong Acked-by: David Kershner Acked-by: David S. Miller Acked-by: Dmitry Torokhov Acked-by: Doug Ledford Acked-by: Fabio Estevam Acked-by: Felipe Balbi Acked-by: Florian Westphal Acked-by: Geert Uytterhoeven Acked-by: Guenter Roeck Acked-by: Hannes Reinecke Acked-by: Hans de Goede Acked-by: Heiko Carstens Acked-by: Heiko Stuebner Acked-by: Heiner Kallweit Acked-by: Ingo Molnar Acked-by: Ivan Safonov Acked-by: Jaegeuk Kim Acked-by: Jan Kara (SUSE) Acked-by: Javier Martinez Canillas Acked-by: Jeff Kirsher Acked-by: Jens Axboe Acked-by: Jes Sorensen Acked-by: Jiri Kosina Acked-by: Jiri Pirko Acked-by: Joe Perches Acked-by: Joerg Roedel (SUSE) Acked-by: Johan Hovold Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf Acked-by: Juergen Gross Acked-by: Julia Lawall Acked-by: K. Y. Srinivasan Acked-by: Khalid Aziz Acked-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski Acked-by: Kuninori Morimoto Acked-by: Larry Finger Acked-by: Laura Abbott Acked-by: Lee Jones Acked-by: Leon Romanovsky Acked-by: Linus Walleij (Linaro) Acked-by: Lv Zheng Acked-by: Martin K. Petersen (Oracle) Acked-by: Masahiro Yamada Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu Acked-by: Mel Gorman Acked-by: Michael S. Tsirkin Acked-by: Michal Hocko Acked-by: Mike Marshall Acked-by: Namhyung Kim Acked-by: Neil Armstrong Acked-by: Olof Johansson Acked-by: Pablo Neira Ayuso Acked-by: Paolo Bonzini Acked-by: Paul Burton Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra Acked-by: Rafael J. Wysocki Acked-by: Ralf Baechle Acked-by: Richard Weinberger Acked-by: Rik van Riel Acked-by: Rob Clark Acked-by: Rob Herring Acked-by: Sebastian Reichel (Collabora) Acked-by: Shawn Guo Acked-by: Shuah Khan Acked-by: Simon Horman Acked-by: Srinivas Kandagatla Acked-by: Steven Rostedt (VMware) Acked-by: Sven Eckelmann Acked-by: Takashi Iwai (SUSE) Acked-by: Tejun Heo Acked-by: Thierry Reding Acked-by: Tony Luck Acked-by: Ulf Hansson Acked-by: Vinod Koul Acked-by: Viresh Kumar Acked-by: Vivien Didelot Acked-by: Wei Yongjun Acked-by: Xin Long Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman --- Documentation/process/index.rst | 1 + .../process/kernel-enforcement-statement.rst | 147 ++++++++++++++++++ 2 files changed, 148 insertions(+) create mode 100644 Documentation/process/kernel-enforcement-statement.rst diff --git a/Documentation/process/index.rst b/Documentation/process/index.rst index 82fc399fcd33..61e43cc3ed17 100644 --- a/Documentation/process/index.rst +++ b/Documentation/process/index.rst @@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ Below are the essential guides that every developer should read. submitting-patches coding-style email-clients + kernel-enforcement-statement Other guides to the community that are of interest to most developers are: diff --git a/Documentation/process/kernel-enforcement-statement.rst b/Documentation/process/kernel-enforcement-statement.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000000..1e23d4227337 --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/process/kernel-enforcement-statement.rst @@ -0,0 +1,147 @@ +Linux Kernel Enforcement Statement +---------------------------------- + +As developers of the Linux kernel, we have a keen interest in how our software +is used and how the license for our software is enforced. Compliance with the +reciprocal sharing obligations of GPL-2.0 is critical to the long-term +sustainability of our software and community. + +Although there is a right to enforce the separate copyright interests in the +contributions made to our community, we share an interest in ensuring that +individual enforcement actions are conducted in a manner that benefits our +community and do not have an unintended negative impact on the health and +growth of our software ecosystem. In order to deter unhelpful enforcement +actions, we agree that it is in the best interests of our development +community to undertake the following commitment to users of the Linux kernel +on behalf of ourselves and any successors to our copyright interests: + + Notwithstanding the termination provisions of the GPL-2.0, we agree that + it is in the best interests of our development community to adopt the + following provisions of GPL-3.0 as additional permissions under our + license with respect to any non-defensive assertion of rights under the + license. + + However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license + from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally, + unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally + terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder + fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to + 60 days after the cessation. + + Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is + reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the + violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have + received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that + copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after + your receipt of the notice. + +Our intent in providing these assurances is to encourage more use of the +software. We want companies and individuals to use, modify and distribute +this software. We want to work with users in an open and transparent way to +eliminate any uncertainty about our expectations regarding compliance or +enforcement that might limit adoption of our software. We view legal action +as a last resort, to be initiated only when other community efforts have +failed to resolve the problem. + +Finally, once a non-compliance issue is resolved, we hope the user will feel +welcome to join us in our efforts on this project. Working together, we will +be stronger. + +Except where noted below, we speak only for ourselves, and not for any company +we might work for today, have in the past, or will in the future. + + - Bjorn Andersson (Linaro) + - Andrea Arcangeli (Red Hat) + - Neil Armstrong + - Jens Axboe + - Pablo Neira Ayuso + - Khalid Aziz + - Ralf Baechle + - Felipe Balbi + - Arnd Bergmann + - Ard Biesheuvel + - Paolo Bonzini (Red Hat) + - Christian Borntraeger + - Mark Brown (Linaro) + - Paul Burton + - Javier Martinez Canillas + - Rob Clark + - Jonathan Corbet + - Vivien Didelot (Savoir-faire Linux) + - Hans de Goede (Red Hat) + - Mel Gorman (SUSE) + - Sven Eckelmann + - Alex Elder (Linaro) + - Fabio Estevam + - Larry Finger + - Bhumika Goyal + - Andy Gross + - Juergen Gross + - Shawn Guo + - Ulf Hansson + - Tejun Heo + - Rob Herring + - Masami Hiramatsu + - Michal Hocko + - Simon Horman + - Johan Hovold (Hovold Consulting AB) + - Christophe JAILLET + - Olof Johansson + - Lee Jones (Linaro) + - Heiner Kallweit + - Srinivas Kandagatla + - Jan Kara + - Shuah Khan (Samsung) + - David Kershner + - Jaegeuk Kim + - Namhyung Kim + - Colin Ian King + - Jeff Kirsher + - Greg Kroah-Hartman (Linux Foundation) + - Christian König + - Vinod Koul + - Krzysztof Kozlowski + - Viresh Kumar + - Aneesh Kumar K.V + - Julia Lawall + - Doug Ledford (Red Hat) + - Chuck Lever (Oracle) + - Daniel Lezcano + - Shaohua Li + - Xin Long (Red Hat) + - Tony Luck + - Mike Marshall + - Chris Mason + - Paul E. McKenney + - David S. Miller + - Ingo Molnar + - Kuninori Morimoto + - Borislav Petkov + - Jiri Pirko + - Josh Poimboeuf + - Sebastian Reichel (Collabora) + - Guenter Roeck + - Joerg Roedel + - Leon Romanovsky + - Steven Rostedt (VMware) + - Ivan Safonov + - Ivan Safonov + - Anna Schumaker + - Jes Sorensen + - K.Y. Srinivasan + - Heiko Stuebner + - Jiri Kosina (SUSE) + - Dmitry Torokhov + - Linus Torvalds + - Thierry Reding + - Rik van Riel + - Geert Uytterhoeven (Glider bvba) + - Daniel Vetter + - Linus Walleij + - Richard Weinberger + - Dan Williams + - Rafael J. Wysocki + - Arvind Yadav + - Masahiro Yamada + - Wei Yongjun + - Lv Zheng