drm core/helpers and MIT license

[Alex Deucher]

On Tue, Nov 12, 2019 at 10:03 AM Daniel Vetter <daniel.vetter at ffwll.ch> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> Dave and me chatted about this last week on irc. Essentially we have:
>
> $ git grep SPDX.*GPL -- ':(glob)drivers/gpu/drm/*c'
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_client.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_damage_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 OR MIT
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_dp_cec.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_edid_load.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_fb_cma_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_format_helper.c:/* SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 */
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_cma_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier:
> GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_framebuffer_helper.c://
> SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_shmem_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_ttm_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier:
> GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_gem_vram_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier:
> GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_hdcp.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_lease.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_mipi_dbi.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_of.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_simple_kms_helper.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier:
> GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_sysfs.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0-only
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_vma_manager.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 OR MIT
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_vram_helper_common.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier:
> GPL-2.0-or-later
> drivers/gpu/drm/drm_writeback.c:// SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
>
> One is GPL+MIT, so ok, and one is a default GPL-only header from
> Greg's infamous patch (so could probably be changed to MIT license
> header). I only looked at .c sources, since headers are worse wrt
> having questionable default headers. So about 18 files with clear GPL
> licenses thus far in drm core/helpers.
>
> Looking at where that code came from, it is mostly from GPL-only
> drivers (we have a lot of those nowadays), so seems legit non-MIT
> licensed. Question is now what do we do:
>
> - Nothing, which means GPL will slowly encroach on drm core/helpers,
> which is roughly the same as ...
>
> - Throw in the towel on MIT drm core officially. Same as above, except
> lets just make it official.
>
> - Try to counter this, which means at least a) relicensing a bunch of
> stuff b) rewriting a bunch of stuff c) making sure that's ok with
> everyone, there's a lot of GPL-by-default for the kernel (that's how
> we got most of the above code through merged drivers I think). I
> suspect that whomever cares will need to put in the work to make this
> happen (since it will need a pile of active resistance at least).
>

I'd like to try and keep as much MIT as possible.  I'd be willing to
help with the re-licensing effort.

Alex

> Cc maintainers/driver teams who might care most about this.
>
> Also if people could cc *bsd, they probably care and I don't know best
> contacts for graphics stuff (or anything else really at all).
>
> Cheers, Daniel
> --
> Daniel Vetter
> Software Engineer, Intel Corporation
> +41 (0) 79 365 57 48 - http://blog.ffwll.ch