[flashrom] What's the intended license for flashrom?

[Carl-Daniel Hailfinger]

Hi Nico,

On 27.01.2018 15:49, Nico Huber wrote:
> Hi Stefan,
>
> On 26.01.2018 23:43, Stefan Tauner wrote:
>> On Fri, 26 Jan 2018 18:51:46 +0100
>> Nico Huber <nico.h at gmx.de> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi folks,
>>>
>>> I've just noticed that most of flashrom is licensed under GPLv2 + any
>>> later version, while about a third of the code base is GPLv2 only.
>>> I wonder if that is intentional, or if any of the license headers was
>>> just copy pasted and spread too much?
>> Hi,
>>
>> using GPLv2 code in a GPLv2+ project is perfectly fine:
>> https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.en.html#compat-matrix-footnote-2
> of course. But given that people ask from time to time about libflashrom
> GPLv2 might not be the only license involved.
>
>> Not sure about the "spread factor" but there are certainly *some* parts
>> that are GPLv2 so there is not much incentive to look further IMHO...
> Not to completely unify the licensing, no. But flashrom is rather
> flexible concerning what is build into the binary. So we could still
> strive to make it GPLv2+ in its core or something.
>
> Also, I am wondering if I should encourage contributors that add new
> files to make it GPLv2+ or not.


The decision to have parts of flashrom licensed unter GPLv2-only was a
response to some external people wanting to add GPLv3+ code to the code
base (or create a GPLv3/GPLv3+ fork for purely political reasons) many
years ago. That would have made flashrom unusable for GPLv2-only
projects, which would have been a bad thing for coreboot.
Back then, I had asked RMS for advice on how to prevent a hostile GPLv3+
takeover of a GPLv2+ codebase, and he told me that this was impossible
for GPLv2+ code. Due to that, we kept parts of flashrom licensed under
GPLv2-only. Back then, there was no GPLv3+ licensed project which would
have qualified as potential user of flashrom code, so there weren't any
downsides to that licensing decision.
The wave of "let's GPLv3 all the things" seems to mostly have subsided now.

The decision of the preferred license for new files is hard. I think
both GPLv2 and GPLv2+ are reasonable at first glance, but I feel
uncomforable deciding this without reassessing the situation in detail.

As Stefan said, with some parts of flashrom being GPLv2-only there is
not much incentive to look further...

Regards,
Carl-Daniel