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google / safeside

Understand and mitigate software-observable side-channels
BSD 3-Clause "New" or "Revised" License
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Linux kernel modules can't be licensed under Apache 2 #107

Closed gregkh closed 4 years ago

gregkh commented 4 years ago

Apache 2 isn't a good kernel license (having to use "proprietary" as a module license string should have been a big hint.)

Please just make these GPLv2 so we can all use and contribute to them.

ssbr commented 4 years ago

Can you elaborate on why this licensing scheme means not everyone can use this or contribute to it?

gregkh commented 4 years ago

Most, if not all, kernel developers employed by companies are not allowed to contribute to non-GPLv2-compatible kernel code for obvious reasons (hint, you wouldn't want me to either).

I'll turn it around, why does anyone think this licensing scheme is a good idea, or, at the very least, even legal? :)

emaste commented 4 years ago

To the extent that proof of concept code isn't a derivative of the Linux kernel it would be very useful to other projects if the license isn't GPLv2-only, e.g. BSD/GPLv2 dual license like the i915 graphics drivers.

mmdriley commented 4 years ago

@gregkh @emaste we're working on an answer here -- expect more after the holidays -- but I can definitely say our intent is to make sure everything will be available with a permissive license option.

mmdriley commented 4 years ago

@gregkh the kernel modules (along with the rest of the repository) are now available as GPLv2.

gregkh commented 4 years ago

Wonderful, thank you so much for doing this!