uClibc copyright and licence audit

[Mike Frysinger]

On Monday 17 September 2007, Simon Richter wrote:
> The situation is as follows: uclibc has over 2000 source files (~1800
> files ending in .c and .h, plus the build system), with lots of
> different copyright holders and licences. While the situation is not
> hopeless (the vast majority have clear information, and I haven't found
> too many :-) incompatibilities so far), it is nonetheless needed to do a
> full audit.

whatever floats your boat i guess

> There are a few "trivial" files consisting of three or four lines of
> code that do not have proper attribution, and some stuff seems to have
> been duplicated and patched (mostly in the ld.so directory) without
> adding the authors of the modifications; also it is necessary to
> cross-check whether some of the licences affect each other in curious
> and interesting ways

the license for uClibc should largely be LGPL-2.1 with BSD bits sprinkled in.  
it's the same as glibc in this respect.  one off files should be converted to 
LGPL-2.1.

> (for example, the LGPL stipulates that the build 
> system is part of the source; however large parts of that are GPLed,
> which could lead people to argue that the binaries are also under the
> GPL (the LGPL permits relicensing under the GPL and stipulates that the
> build system is part of the source, so the only way to reach a
> consistent licencing would be to apply the GPL everywhere).

people can bite it ... if they're worried about pollution, they are certainly 
feel free to write their own build system and not use kconfig.

> So, I'm planning to go through all of the files and find out who wrote
> what, add the proper attribution in the source files and a longish
> document that summarizes everything. As this is significantly more fun
> with more people, I'm asking for supporters.
>
> There are a few different options:

you missed the right one: do it on the mailing list.  the uClibc community 
isnt setup to handle any of the others you proposed.
-mike
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