Re: [gentoo-dev] Dealing with GitHub Pull Requests the easy way

[Ulrich Mueller]

>>>>> On Thu, 27 Oct 2016, Matthias Maier wrote:

>> Therefore, we may indeed consider taking the DCO from the Linux source
>> tree which is distributed under the GPL-2

> I highly doubt that the DCO in the readme is licensed under GPL-2. There
> is no readme/header, or other indicator stating this. Not everything in
> the linux repository falls under GPL-2.

Few of the files in the Documentation subdir have a license header.
It is also missing from various other files (top-level Makefile, for
example). Following your reasoning, we would not be permitted to
distribute kernel tarballs.

So, should we add mirror restriction to sys-kernel/*-sources then?
I very much doubt that this is the intention of upstream. I'd rather
conclude that they are a bit lax with their headers (as compared to
the FSF, for example).

Also, in COPYING in the top-level dir there is this:

   Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
   Foundation, but *the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
   kernel)* is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.

   Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel
   is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not
   v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.

   [*...* my emphasis, _..._ author's emphasis]

I would conclude that the intention is that the whole of the Linux
kernel can be distributed under the GPL, version 2, unless noted
otherwise.

Ulrich