[LinuxBIOS] License clarification, round 1

[Uwe Hermann]

      Hi all,

this will probably make me very unpopular around here, but oh well... ;)

I've started looking at _all_ files in svn and checking their respective
license to see if it's GPL'd or at least has another Free Software license.
Also, all such licenses must be GPL compatible, too, AFAIK (but I'm no
lawyer).

This is important for a) the Debian package, which must meet the DSFG
(Debian Free Software Guidelines), see
http://www.us.debian.org/social_contract#guidelines
and b) for the legal status of the LinuxBIOS project itself, as
any non-free-software/non-gpl-compatible code in the repository would
probably be illegal to distribute (depending on the exact license
terms), may cause all kinds of other legal hassle and just simply
compromise the whole idea of the project - to have a _free_ implementation.

So here I am, reading through all files, taking notes which of them
are not GPL'd. Please check the list and clarify the exact license
status of the files, e.g. by adding a GPL header similar to this one below:

/*
 * Copyright (C) 200x Author Name <email(a)example.com>
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301 USA
 */

(or at least a tiny note saying "this file is copyright 200x John Doe and
is licensed under the GPL)...

I'm happy to provide patches which add the above license header to all files,
but someone has to tell me who wrote the code, when, and which license applies
(if that's not obvious from the code).

I noticed that many files do not have any license header at all (some don't
even say who the author is); such files have an unclear status and must be
considered non-free usually, so in cases where that's just an oversight,
please add a respective license note. If the file was taken from another
project, please add a note saying so, and mention the license of that project
in the file.

Assumption: All *.lb config files are GPL'd even though they don't have
the lengthy GPL header in them. Correct? I don't think it's necessary for
those files. The same is probably true for ChangeLog, NEWS, and
documentation/ChangeLog.cvsimport, etc.

The biggest problems I notices so far is the code from IBM and AMD, which says
things like "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved"
or stuff like:
  LICENSED MATERIAL  -  PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M
  US Government Users Restricted Rights - Use, duplication or
  disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with
  IBM Corp. 

That alone (which no additional "this is GPL'd" text would make the code
non-free and
GPL-incompatible, I guess. I hope this can be resolved or clarified somehow.

I also found some licenses which I simply don't know and cannot tell
right now if they're fine or not - that has to be checked at some point.

Anyways, here's the list of issues I noticed so far (haven't checked all the code,
yet):

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HOWTO/EPIA-M-howto: No license note.
documentation/Makefile: No license note.
documentation/RFC/*: No license note.
  * Is that stuff used at all?
documentation/*.eps: No license note.
  * I assume this is GPL'd as LinuxBIOS-AMD64.tex is GPL'd. Correct?
src/arch/i386/boot/acpi.c:
  * Says among other things
    "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved."
    which is bad as it means it's NOT GPL'd and you cannot use it for anything,
    really. No explicit permissions means you have no rights according to
    international copyright laws, AFAIK (but I'm no lawyer).
src/arch/i386/boot/boot.c: No license note.
src/arch/i386/boot/linuxbios_table.*: No license note.
src/arch/i386/boot/pirq_routing.c: No license note.
src/arch/i386/boot/tables.c:
 * Says: 2006.1 yhlu add mptable cross 0x467 processing
         2003-07 by SONE Takeshi
         Ported from Etherboot to LinuxBIOS 2005-08 by Steve Magnani
   Etherboot is GPL'd (mostly, some parts are BSD), so this is GPL'd, right?
src/arch/i386/include/*.h: No license note.
src/arch/i386/include/arch/acpi.h:
 * Now this is totally confusing.
   * written by Stefan Reinauer <stepan(a)openbios.org> (GPL'd?)
   * (C) 2004 SUSE LINUX AG (license?)
   * The ACPI table structs are based on the Linux kernel sources. (GPL'd!)
   * ACPI FADT & FACS added by Nick Barker <nick.barker9(a)btinternet.com>
     those parts (C) 2004 Nick Barker (license?)
   * ACPI SRAT support added in 2005.9 by yhlu (license?)
   * Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved.
     ---> Baaad...
src/arch/i386/include/arch/intel.h:
  * Not sure what to make of this... It's not the GPL, it's not the BSD
    license (or the MIT license), either. ((2))
    Is this GPL compatible?
      /* This software and ancillary information (herein called SOFTWARE )
      called LinuxBIOS          is made available under the terms described
      here.  The SOFTWARE has been approved for release with associated
      LA-CC Number 00-34   .  Unless otherwise indicated, this SOFTWARE has
      been authored by an employee or employees of the University of
      California, operator of the Los Alamos National Laboratory under
      Contract No. W-7405-ENG-36 with the U.S. Department of Energy.  The
      U.S. Government has rights to use, reproduce, and distribute this
      SOFTWARE.  The public may copy, distribute, prepare derivative works
      and publicly display this SOFTWARE without charge, provided that this
      Notice and any statement of authorship are reproduced on all copies.
      Neither the Government nor the University makes any warranty, express
      or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of
      this SOFTWARE.  If SOFTWARE is modified to produce derivative works,
      such modified SOFTWARE should be clearly marked, so as not to confuse
      it with the version available from LANL.  */
      /* Copyright 2000, Ron Minnich, Advanced Computing Lab, LANL
       * rminnich(a)lanl.gov */
src/arch/i386/include/arch/*.h (except for the above ones): No license note.
src/arch/i386/include/arch/boot/boot.h: No license note.
src/arch/i386/include/arch/smp/*.h: No license note.
src/arch/i386/init/ldscript.lb:
 * Says: Copyright (c) 1999 by Net Insight AB. All Rights Reserved.
   Not good...
src/arch/i386/lib/printk_init.c:
 * Copyright (C) 1991, 1992  Linus Torvalds
   No explicit license note, but it's quite surely GPL ((1)).
src/arch/i386/lib/*: No license note.
src/arch/i386/llshell/readme.linuxbios: No license note.
 * Probably GPL'd, as the file it documents (llshell.inc) is GPL'd.
src/arch/i386/smp/*: No license note.
src/arch/ppc/boot/*: No license note.
src/arch/ppc/include/ppc4xx.h:
 * Strange non-standard header, not sure what to make of it.
     This source code has been made available to you by IBM on an AS-IS
     basis.  Anyone receiving this source is licensed under IBM
     copyrights to use it in any way he or she deems fit, including
     copying it, modifying it, compiling it, and redistributing it either
     with or without modifications.  No license under IBM patents or
     patent applications is to be implied by the copyright license.
   
     Any user of this software should understand that IBM cannot provide
     technical support for this software and will not be responsible for
     any consequences resulting from the use of this software.
   
     Any person who transfers this source code or any derivative work
     must include the IBM copyright notice, this paragraph, and the
     preceding two paragraphs in the transferred software.
   
     COPYRIGHT   I B M   CORPORATION 1999
     LICENSED MATERIAL  -  PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M
src/arch/ppc/include/ppc970.h:
  COPYRIGHT   I B M   CORPORATION 2003
  LICENSED MATERIAL  -  PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M
  US Government Users Restricted Rights - Use, duplication or
  disclosure restricted by GSA ADP Schedule Contract with
  IBM Corp.
src/arch/ppc/include/*.* (except for the above ones): No license note.
src/arch/ppc/include/arch/*.h: No license note.
src/arch/ppc/include/arch/boot/*.h: No license note.
src/arch/ppc/init/ldscript.lb:
 * No license, but some authors:
     Written by Johan Rydberg, based on work by Daniel Kahlin.
     Rewritten by Eric Biederman
     Re-rewritten by Greg Watson for PPC
src/arch/ppc/init/ppc_main.c:
 * No license, but an author:
     Copyright (C) 2003 by Greg Watson, Los Alamos National Laboratory
     gwatson(a)lanl.gov
src/arch/ppc/lib/cpu.c: No license note.
src/arch/ppc/lib/pci_dev.c: No license note.
src/arch/ppc/lib/pci_ppc_conf1_ops.c: No license note.
src/boot/hardwaremain.c: Same as ((2)).
src/config/LinuxBIOSDoc.config: No license note (GPL?).
src/config/doxyscript.base: No license note (GPL?).
src/config/linuxbios_ram.ld:
 * Copyright (c) 1999 by Net Insight AB. All Rights Reserved.
   --> Bad.
src/console/btext_console.c: No license note, but some authors:
 * Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh(a)kernel.crashing.org>
   move to LinuxBIOS by LYH yhlu(a)tyan.com
src/console/font-8x16.c: Same as ((1)).
src/console/printk.c: Same as ((1)).
src/console/vga_console.c: No license note, but an author:
 * modified from original freebios code
   by Steve M. Gehlbach <steve(a)kesa.com>
src/console/vsprintf.c: Same as ((1)).
src/console/vtxprintf.c: Same as ((1)).

targets/buildtarget: No license note. The rest of target/ has no license, too,
but should be fine (mostly config files).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

HTH, Uwe.
-- 
Uwe Hermann 
http://www.hermann-uwe.de
http://www.it-services-uh.de  | http://www.crazy-hacks.org 
http://www.holsham-traders.de | http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org

[Richard Smith]

  I've started looking at _all_ files in svn and
checking their respective
 license to see if it's GPL'd or at least has another Free Software license.
 Also, all such licenses must be GPL compatible, too, AFAIK (but I'm no
 lawyer).

 This is important for a) the Debian package, which must meet the DSFG
 (Debian Free Software Guidelines), see
Uwe,

Wow thats quite a list.  Thank you for doing this.  This is also going
to be very important for OLPC.  We will be releasing some stuff in the
near future and I'm sure this issue will come up.

-- 
Richard A. Smith

[Stefan Reinauer]

      Hi Uwe,

thank you very much for your acribic arduousness. 

I hope I can lower your apprehensions in this case a bit:

* Uwe Hermann <uwe(a)hermann-uwe.de> [060829 12:16]:
  I've started looking at _all_ files in svn and
checking their respective
 license to see if it's GPL'd or at least has another Free Software license.
 Also, all such licenses must be GPL compatible, too, AFAIK (but I'm no
 lawyer).
 
The answer here is easy. Every line of LinuxBIOS code is GPL. And 
every line of code we will include in the future will become GPL by the
implicit agreement of the contributor to use LinuxBIOS and to enhance
it. 

  and b) for the legal status of the LinuxBIOS project
itself, as
 any non-free-software/non-gpl-compatible code in the repository would
 probably be illegal to distribute (depending on the exact license
 terms), may cause all kinds of other legal hassle and just simply
 compromise the whole idea of the project - to have a _free_ implementation.
 
This is why we have been doing code reviews and have been in close
contact with the contributors to make sure we do not include otherwise
licensed or protected code.

  So here I am, reading through all files, taking notes
which of them
 are not GPL'd. Please check the list and clarify the exact license
 status of the files, e.g. by adding a GPL header similar to this one below:
 
All of them are GPLed, as a consequence of the inclusion in LinuxBIOS.
Also, files do not need a header stating their license, as the license
is absolutely obvious to everyone downloading the code. We might want to
have them in most files anyways.

  I'm happy to provide patches which add the above
license header to all files,
 but someone has to tell me who wrote the code, when, and which license applies
 (if that's not obvious from the code).
 
 I noticed that many files do not have any license header at all (some don't
 even say who the author is); such files have an unclear status and must be
 considered non-free usually, so in cases where that's just an oversight,
 please add a respective license note.
No they must not. Who would say they must? Legally absolutely obvious
that the files have been checked by those with checkin capabilities to
be free.

An example: Not every song on a CD needs a copyright note spoken before
the song starts. it is completely sufficient to print the copyright once
on the CD.

  If the file was taken from another
 project, please add a note saying so, and mention the license of that project
 in the file.
 
As we are using GPL as the license, only files with GPL license or with
licenses compatible to the GPL license have been included. All files in
the repository are licensed under the GPL. No exceptions. 

  Assumption: All *.lb config files are GPL'd even
though they don't have
 the lengthy GPL header in them. Correct? I don't think it's necessary for
 those files. The same is probably true for ChangeLog, NEWS, and
 documentation/ChangeLog.cvsimport, etc.
Yes it is not necessary, and we need to be careful not to bloat the
readability with comments like this. If we want to comment the 

  
 The biggest problems I notices so far is the code from IBM and AMD, which says
 things like "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved"
There is no problem with this. The fact that AMD released these files to
the public as GPL does not touch the fact that they own a copyright to
it. In fact, in Europe signing over copyrights is impossible as of
current law, so these notes are just fine. They read "This part has been
sponsored by AMD and they are allowed to make copies of it"

  or stuff like:
    LICENSED MATERIAL  -  PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M
 
  That alone (which no additional "this is
GPL'd" text would make the
 code non-free and GPL-incompatible, I guess. I hope this can be
 resolved or clarified somehow.
 
I would not see a legal regulation to back your assumption. The fact
that it is "licensed" does not make it non-free. the license is GPL,
because IBM acknowledged making it GPL by contributing to a GPL project.

And that its their property is not an issue. All programs a person
writes is that person's property unless the person does the development
work on a contractual basis in wich case the contractor owns the
property. This is an exciting area of law, but it has absolutely nothing
to do with wether LinuxBIOS is GPLed or not.

    * I assume this is GPL'd as LinuxBIOS-AMD64.tex
is GPL'd. Correct?
 src/arch/i386/boot/acpi.c:
     "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved."
     which is bad as it means it's NOT GPL'd and you cannot use it for anything
where does it say that it is not GPL? Could not find the paragraph you
are talking about. Search the mailinglist archives for details on above
code. 

      really. No explicit permissions means you have no
rights according to
     international copyright laws, AFAIK (but I'm no lawyer).
The "opus" (Werk) as such is explicitly GPL licensed, so the GPL applies
for every single line of code. I am not a lawyer either but I asked mine.

The single parts of the opus are of no more concern. Be it a file, a
subdirectory or a single line of the opus. They are all subordinated.



So unless we have an indication stating something different I suggest
what we do is emphasize that the whole of LinuxBIOS is GPL licensed by
the respective copyright holders. 

To make things clearer, I also suggest removing license descriptions
from every single source file in the tree and only have a single license
file stating the only valid project license. this way there will not be
confusion and we dont bloat the code with comments that dont comment
the code.


In case of such an indication we will immediately remove the code from
the repository.

Comments?


Stefan

[Greg Watson]

      Any files in the PPC tree I either wrote myself (hence are released  
under the GPL) or I obtained from the u-boot project (http://u- 
boot.sourceforge.net/) which is also GPL'd. The weird licenses were  
already in the files. If someone wants to go and tidy them all up  
then feel free.

Greg

On Aug 29, 2006, at 10:33 AM, Stefan Reinauer wrote:

  Hi Uwe,

 thank you very much for your acribic arduousness.

 I hope I can lower your apprehensions in this case a bit:

 * Uwe Hermann <uwe(a)hermann-uwe.de> [060829 12:16]:
  I've started looking at _all_ files in svn
and checking their  
 respective
 license to see if it's GPL'd or at least has another Free Software  
 license.
 Also, all such licenses must be GPL compatible, too, AFAIK (but  
 I'm no
 lawyer).
 The answer here is easy. Every line of LinuxBIOS code is GPL. And
 every line of code we will include in the future will become GPL by  
 the
 implicit agreement of the contributor to use LinuxBIOS and to enhance
 it.

  and b) for the legal status of the LinuxBIOS
project itself, as
 any non-free-software/non-gpl-compatible code in the repository would
 probably be illegal to distribute (depending on the exact license
 terms), may cause all kinds of other legal hassle and just simply
 compromise the whole idea of the project - to have a _free_  
 implementation.
 This is why we have been doing code reviews and have been in close
 contact with the contributors to make sure we do not include otherwise
 licensed or protected code.

  So here I am, reading through all files, taking
notes which of them
 are not GPL'd. Please check the list and clarify the exact license
 status of the files, e.g. by adding a GPL header similar to this  
 one below:
 All of them are GPLed, as a consequence of the inclusion in LinuxBIOS.
 Also, files do not need a header stating their license, as the license
 is absolutely obvious to everyone downloading the code. We might  
 want to
 have them in most files anyways.

  I'm happy to provide patches which add the
above license header to  
 all files,
 but someone has to tell me who wrote the code, when, and which  
 license applies
 (if that's not obvious from the code).

 I noticed that many files do not have any license header at all  
 (some don't
 even say who the author is); such files have an unclear status and  
 must be
 considered non-free usually, so in cases where that's just an  
 oversight,
 please add a respective license note.
 No they must not. Who would say they must? Legally absolutely obvious
 that the files have been checked by those with checkin capabilities to
 be free.

 An example: Not every song on a CD needs a copyright note spoken  
 before
 the song starts. it is completely sufficient to print the copyright  
 once
 on the CD.

  If the file was taken from another
 project, please add a note saying so, and mention the license of  
 that project
 in the file.
 As we are using GPL as the license, only files with GPL license or  
 with
 licenses compatible to the GPL license have been included. All  
 files in
 the repository are licensed under the GPL. No exceptions.

  Assumption: All *.lb config files are GPL'd
even though they don't  
 have
 the lengthy GPL header in them. Correct? I don't think it's  
 necessary for
 those files. The same is probably true for ChangeLog, NEWS, and
 documentation/ChangeLog.cvsimport, etc.
 Yes it is not necessary, and we need to be careful not to bloat the
 readability with comments like this. If we want to comment the

 
 The biggest problems I notices so far is the code from IBM and  
 AMD, which says
 things like "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All  
 Rights Reserved"
 There is no problem with this. The fact that AMD released these  
 files to
 the public as GPL does not touch the fact that they own a copyright to
 it. In fact, in Europe signing over copyrights is impossible as of
 current law, so these notes are just fine. They read "This part has  
 been
 sponsored by AMD and they are allowed to make copies of it"

  or stuff like:
    LICENSED MATERIAL  -  PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M
  That alone (which no additional "this is
GPL'd" text would make the
 code non-free and GPL-incompatible, I guess. I hope this can be
 resolved or clarified somehow.
 I would not see a legal regulation to back your assumption. The fact
 that it is "licensed" does not make it non-free. the license is GPL,
 because IBM acknowledged making it GPL by contributing to a GPL  
 project.

 And that its their property is not an issue. All programs a person
 writes is that person's property unless the person does the  
 development
 work on a contractual basis in wich case the contractor owns the
 property. This is an exciting area of law, but it has absolutely  
 nothing
 to do with wether LinuxBIOS is GPLed or not.

    * I assume this is GPL'd as
LinuxBIOS-AMD64.tex is GPL'd. Correct?
 src/arch/i386/boot/acpi.c:
     "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights  
 Reserved."
     which is bad as it means it's NOT GPL'd and you cannot use it  
 for anything
 where does it say that it is not GPL? Could not find the paragraph you
 are talking about. Search the mailinglist archives for details on  
 above
 code.

      really. No explicit permissions means you
have no rights  
 according to
     international copyright laws, AFAIK (but I'm no lawyer).
 The "opus" (Werk) as such is explicitly GPL licensed, so the GPL  
 applies
 for every single line of code. I am not a lawyer either but I asked  
 mine.

 The single parts of the opus are of no more concern. Be it a file, a
 subdirectory or a single line of the opus. They are all subordinated.



 So unless we have an indication stating something different I suggest
 what we do is emphasize that the whole of LinuxBIOS is GPL licensed by
 the respective copyright holders.

 To make things clearer, I also suggest removing license descriptions
 from every single source file in the tree and only have a single  
 license
 file stating the only valid project license. this way there will  
 not be
 confusion and we dont bloat the code with comments that dont comment
 the code.


 In case of such an indication we will immediately remove the code from
 the repository.

 Comments?


 Stefan

 -- 
 linuxbios mailing list
 linuxbios(a)linuxbios.org
 http://www.openbios.org/mailman/listinfo/linuxbios

[Greg Lindahl]

      On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 06:33:31PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:

  The answer here is easy. Every line of LinuxBIOS code
is GPL.
It seems that the standard for GPLed projects is to include the
boilerplate in all the source files. For example, the GPL v2 says:

|   To do so, attach the following notices to the program.  It is safest
| to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively
| convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least
| the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

Why should LinuxBIOS do different?

-- greg

[Uwe Hermann]

      Hi,

On Tue, Aug 29, 2006 at 06:33:31PM +0200, Stefan Reinauer wrote:
  The answer here is easy. Every line of LinuxBIOS code
is GPL. And 
 every line of code we will include in the future will become GPL by the
 implicit agreement of the contributor to use LinuxBIOS and to enhance
 it.
I agree, _if_ the code is contributed willingly and knowingly by the
third-party, _and_ that fact is documented in the file (by adding a
copyright line and the GPL license header).

It's an entirely different situation if the code was taken from some
other project, in which case it's not necessarily GPL'd.

 
  This is why we have been doing code reviews and have
been in close
 contact with the contributors to make sure we do not include otherwise
 licensed or protected code.
That's great to hear!

 
  All of them are GPLed, as a consequence of the
inclusion in LinuxBIOS.
 Also, files do not need a header stating their license, as the license
 is absolutely obvious to everyone downloading the code.
Yes and no. The license of the project might be obvious, but I've come
over many GPL'd projects which are not actually 100% GPL'd even if they
say so. Many contained files from some other sources which were copied in
the code-base and had no proper license, or a non-free one...

It's very important in my opinion that every file states the exact
year, copyright owner, and license of the code.

* Year, because this may become relevant in jurisdictions which have laws
  that (for example) code becomes public domain after X years etc.

* Copyright owner, so that everyone knows whom to contact in case of legal
  questions, license questions etc. etc.

* License, so that it's clear under which license terms the file may be
  distributed. Even for the "normal case" of the GPL this is important,
  as it makes a difference whether the respective contributor licensed
  his code under the terms of the "GPL, version 2 (or any later version)"
  or "GPL, version 2" (or version 1, or version 3 in future).
  AFAIK "GPL, version 2 (or any later version)" and "GPL, version 2"
are
  compatible, but version 2 and 3 might not be, for example...

  I've seen both variants (v2, and v2 or later) in the code, so maybe
  that should be standardized (by asking all contributors of one variant
  if they agree to relicensing their code to the other variant).

  Maybe some FSF people on this list can comment on this issue.


  I noticed that
many files do not have any license header at all (some don't
 even say who the author is); such files have an unclear status and must be
 considered non-free usually, so in cases where that's just an oversight,
 please add a respective license note.
 
 No they must not. Who would say they must? Legally absolutely obvious
 that the files have been checked by those with checkin capabilities to
 be free.
The problem is that no license header means you cannot be sure whether the
file is GPL'd or was simply copied from some other project and didn't
have a license header there either, or the header was removed when copying
the file (which is always a bad idea).

Therefore I think it's a lot better to add a license note to _all_
source code files, just to make things perfectly clear and to prevent
guess-work and having to ask around, or search svn commit logs or
mailinglists just to find out which license applies.


  If the file
was taken from another
 project, please add a note saying so, and mention the license of that project
 in the file.
  
 As we are using GPL as the license, only files with GPL license or with
 licenses compatible to the GPL license have been included. All files in
 the repository are licensed under the GPL. No exceptions.
Well, except for the ones which say something different, of course. Say there
was a BSD-licensed file in the repository (I don't know if there really
is one). That file will remain BSD-licensed, of course, no matter what
the license of the LinuxBIOS project is. It's just the fact that the
(revised) BSD license is GPL-compatible that would make it possible to
use the code in LinuxBIOS. But it would still be BSD-licensed.


  The biggest
problems I notices so far is the code from IBM and AMD, which says
 things like "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved"
 
 There is no problem with this. The fact that AMD released these files to
 the public as GPL does not touch the fact that they own a copyright to
 it. In fact, in Europe signing over copyrights is impossible as of
 current law, so these notes are just fine.
That's entirely correct. Copyright is a different concept from a
license, and in Germany (maybe other parts of Europe) you cannot
re-assign copyright ("Urheberrecht", actually) to other people.

It's perfectly fine that AMD has the copyright, as long as the
code is licensed under the terms of the GPL.

It's the "All Rights Reserved" that makes me nervous. If that would read
"This file is licensed under the GPL" (or better just the usual
GPL header was there), everything would be fine.
The current text in there is at least confusing, maybe even worse. It
simply doesn't state _any_ license which applies to the code.


  or stuff like:
 
    LICENSED MATERIAL  -  PROGRAM PROPERTY OF I B M
  
  That alone (which no additional "this is
GPL'd" text would make the
 code non-free and GPL-incompatible, I guess. I hope this can be
 resolved or clarified somehow.
  
 I would not see a legal regulation to back your assumption. The fact
 that it is "licensed" does not make it non-free. the license is GPL,
 because IBM acknowledged making it GPL by contributing to a GPL project.
If that's the case, great! Then it's just a matter of making this clear in
the file.

The text as it is right now, is confusing and doesn't state
that the code is GPL'd. It rather sounds very restrictive and from
reading just that text, I'd have severe doubts whether I can legally
include it in a GPL'd project.


 
src/arch/i386/boot/acpi.c:
     "Copyright 2005 ADVANCED MICRO DEVICES, INC. All Rights Reserved."
     which is bad as it means it's NOT GPL'd and you cannot use it for anything
 
 where does it say that it is not GPL? Could not find the paragraph you
 are talking about.
It doesn't state _that_ it's GPL'd, which is should.


  So unless we have an indication stating something
different I suggest
 what we do is emphasize that the whole of LinuxBIOS is GPL licensed by
 the respective copyright holders.
Sure, that should definately be done (for example in a README file).
It should say which license applies to the code written explicitly for
LinuxBIOS, and that some parts (taken from other projects) may have different
(but GPL-compatible) licenses.

It should also state very clearly whether the code is licensed under the
"GPL, version 2 (or any later version)" or "GPL, version 2".

 
  To make things clearer, I also suggest removing
license descriptions
 from every single source file in the tree and only have a single license
 file stating the only valid project license.
Please don't.

I'm pretty sure single files will some day be copied and incorporated into
other GPL projects, therefore it's important to have the copyright and
license lines in each file.

I'd rather do the opposite - add a license header to all files which
don't yet have one. Disk space is cheap, and legal clarity should be more
important than a slightly larger code base.

If you absolutely must, I'd rather use something short, e.g.

  Copyright 200x John Doe
  This code is licensed under the GPL, version 2 (or any later version)

than no license header at all.


HTH, Uwe.
-- 
Uwe Hermann 
http://www.hermann-uwe.de
http://www.it-services-uh.de  | http://www.crazy-hacks.org 
http://www.holsham-traders.de | http://www.unmaintained-free-software.org