[coreboot] licensing text

[mrnuke]

On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 11:30:04 PM ron minnich wrote:
> This note is motivated by mr.nuke.me's recent CLs with a short-form GPL
> notice in them. I like that notice but I think it needs a tweak, then we
> can just use it everywhere.
> 
Which was motivated by some of your gerrit comments.

> "This file is part of Coreboot Project. It is subject to the license terms
> in the LICENSE file found in the top-level directory of this distribution
> and at http://www.coreboot.org/license.html. No part of the Coreboot
> Project, including this file, may be copied, modified, propagated, or
> distributed except according to the terms contained in the LICENSE file."
> 
> OK, I admit, I painted it because I'm sure the shed will end up with a
> different color :-)
> Yes, yes, no html formatting in emails etc. etc. but sometimes rules must
> be broken.
> 
I had to turn on html in Kmail to see the paint. Now that I can see the 
paint...

1. One has to consider that every line this text takes is one less line of 
code that is visible when opening a file. So, is that the absolute minimum we 
can get to. I've seen a few projects which use a license identifier tag, along 
with an explanation in the README as to what that tag means and how to 
interpret it.

2. There's no longer a place to license under GPLv2 or GPLv2+. It's always a 
nice touch, and a fun step, to decide whether a certain file you wrote should 
go under v2 or v2+.

3. Re-licensing everything under v2 will piss a lot of people who like the 
"+". Some of those v2+ contributions are heavily copied from other v2+ 
projects (read: allwinner from uboot), and I'm not sure that you can simply 
strip the "+" from the license of such files, as you're potentially 
misrepresenting the intent of the author(s).

> I regret that it contains a URL, but in these dark times, one must make
> concessions.
> 
Old text contained both a URL and address. I think this is a step forward.

> So, does this work or do people have objections?
> 
I need to keep my reputation as the most annoying guy. Of course I have 
objections :p.


Alex