Re: [RFC] Patches have a license

Russell King (rmk@arm.linux.org.uk)
Mon, 27 Jan 2003 12:03:34 +0000

On Mon, Jan 27, 2003 at 01:58:40AM -0800, Balbir Singh wrote:
> Looking at the recent posting on lkml, I find that
> a lot of people tend to take and apply patches posted
> on lkml into proprietary modules.

There are two ways to look at a patch on a public mailing list such as
LKML - either it is a public publication without restriction, or it
is a derived work of a copyrighted work, where the copyright on that
work explicitly covers derived works. I'm not going to argue which
since that's the domain of legal people to sort out, and one that I'm
not particularly interested in.

However, basic common sense suggests that if a patch author wants to
ensure that patches are not used in a way that they do not intend them
to be used, then the patch author should explicitly state the license
that they supply the patches under.

-- 
Russell King (rmk@arm.linux.org.uk)                The developer of ARM Linux
             http://www.arm.linux.org.uk/personal/aboutme.html


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