Re: meson.build files are missing copyright/license headers

[Daniel P . Berrangé]

On Tue, Aug 25, 2020 at 03:04:57PM +0100, Peter Maydell wrote:
> On Tue, 25 Aug 2020 at 14:58, Thomas Huth <thuth@redhat.com> wrote:
> > On 25/08/2020 11.53, Peter Maydell wrote:
> > >  * decide what our plan is for 3rd-party code (libvixl, etc)
> > >    [where any SPDX line we add will be lost again next time
> > >    we resync our copy of the code]
> >
> > For things like libvixl, I wonder why this is not a git submodule instead?
> 
> Because we only take a few files from it, not the whole thing
> (which is massive and includes an assembler and a simulator).
> 
> > >  * update existing files (I think the kernel folks probably
> > >    have scripted stuff for the easy parts of this; multi-license
> > >    files like fpu/softfloat.c likely need by-hand conversion)
> >
> > Yes. I think we have to be very careful here with old files - adding the
> > tags is likely ok, but e.g. removing the boilerplate text in the various
> > headers at the same time could be problematic (e.g. the MIT license says
> > "... this permission notice shall be included in all copies or
> > substantial portions of the Software")...
> 
> Presumably the kernel folks have been down this route before us...

Advice I've received is that, in general, removing existing license
header text NOT OK unless you are the exclusive copyright holder.

IIUC the kernel folks went through a bunch of work behind the scenes,
involving lawyers to make what they did ok.

IOW, don't compare QEMU to kernel based solely on the public commits
you see doing the change in linux.git, as that would miss any of the
background work involved.

Regards,
Daniel
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