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Documentation: Add a file explaining the Linux kernel license enforce…
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…ment policy

This adds a short document describing the views of how the Linux kernel
community feels about enforcing the license of the kernel.

Acked-by: Al Viro <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Alex Elder (Linaro) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Andrea Arcangeli <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Andy Gross <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Aneesh Kumar K.V <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Anna Schumaker <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Ard Biesheuvel <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Arnd Bergmann <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Arvind Yadav <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Bart Van Assche <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Bhumika Goyal <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Bjorn Andersson <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Borislav Petkov <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Christian Borntraeger <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Christian König <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Christophe JAILLET <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Chuck Lever <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Colin Ian King <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Daniel Borkmann <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Daniel Lezcano <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Daniel Vetter <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Darrick J. Wong (Oracle) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Darrick J. Wong <[email protected]>
Acked-by: David Kershner <[email protected]>
Acked-by: David S. Miller <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Dmitry Torokhov <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Doug Ledford <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Fabio Estevam <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Felipe Balbi <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Florian Westphal <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Geert Uytterhoeven <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Guenter Roeck <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Hannes Reinecke <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Hans de Goede <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Heiko Carstens <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Heiko Stuebner <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Heiner Kallweit <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Ingo Molnar <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Ivan Safonov <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jaegeuk Kim <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jan Kara (SUSE) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Javier Martinez Canillas <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jeff Kirsher <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jens Axboe <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jes Sorensen <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jiri Kosina <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Jiri Pirko <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Joe Perches <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Joerg Roedel (SUSE) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Johan Hovold <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Josh Poimboeuf <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Juergen Gross <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Julia Lawall <[email protected]>
Acked-by: K. Y. Srinivasan <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Khalid Aziz <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Krzysztof Kozlowski <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Kuninori Morimoto <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Larry Finger <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Laura Abbott <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Lee Jones <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Leon Romanovsky <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Linus Walleij (Linaro) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Lv Zheng <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Martin K. Petersen (Oracle) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Masahiro Yamada <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Masami Hiramatsu <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Mel Gorman <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Michael S. Tsirkin <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Michal Hocko <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Mike Marshall <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Namhyung Kim <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Neil Armstrong <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Olof Johansson <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Pablo Neira Ayuso <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Paolo Bonzini <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Paul Burton <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Paul E. McKenney <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Peter Zijlstra <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Rafael J. Wysocki <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Ralf Baechle <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Richard Weinberger <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Rik van Riel <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Rob Clark <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Rob Herring <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Sebastian Reichel (Collabora) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Shawn Guo <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Shuah Khan <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Simon Horman <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Srinivas Kandagatla <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Steven Rostedt (VMware) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Sven Eckelmann <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Takashi Iwai (SUSE) <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Tejun Heo <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Thierry Reding <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Tony Luck <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Ulf Hansson <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Vinod Koul <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Viresh Kumar <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Vivien Didelot <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Wei Yongjun <[email protected]>
Acked-by: Xin Long <[email protected]>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <[email protected]>
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1 change: 1 addition & 0 deletions Documentation/process/index.rst
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Expand Up @@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ Below are the essential guides that every developer should read.
submitting-patches
coding-style
email-clients
kernel-enforcement-statement

Other guides to the community that are of interest to most developers are:

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147 changes: 147 additions & 0 deletions Documentation/process/kernel-enforcement-statement.rst
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Linux Kernel Enforcement Statement
----------------------------------

As developers of the Linux kernel, we have a keen interest in how our software
is used and how the license for our software is enforced. Compliance with the
reciprocal sharing obligations of GPL-2.0 is critical to the long-term
sustainability of our software and community.

Although there is a right to enforce the separate copyright interests in the
contributions made to our community, we share an interest in ensuring that
individual enforcement actions are conducted in a manner that benefits our
community and do not have an unintended negative impact on the health and
growth of our software ecosystem. In order to deter unhelpful enforcement
actions, we agree that it is in the best interests of our development
community to undertake the following commitment to users of the Linux kernel
on behalf of ourselves and any successors to our copyright interests:

Notwithstanding the termination provisions of the GPL-2.0, we agree that
it is in the best interests of our development community to adopt the
following provisions of GPL-3.0 as additional permissions under our
license with respect to any non-defensive assertion of rights under the
license.

However, if you cease all violation of this License, then your license
from a particular copyright holder is reinstated (a) provisionally,
unless and until the copyright holder explicitly and finally
terminates your license, and (b) permanently, if the copyright holder
fails to notify you of the violation by some reasonable means prior to
60 days after the cessation.

Moreover, your license from a particular copyright holder is
reinstated permanently if the copyright holder notifies you of the
violation by some reasonable means, this is the first time you have
received notice of violation of this License (for any work) from that
copyright holder, and you cure the violation prior to 30 days after
your receipt of the notice.

Our intent in providing these assurances is to encourage more use of the
software. We want companies and individuals to use, modify and distribute
this software. We want to work with users in an open and transparent way to
eliminate any uncertainty about our expectations regarding compliance or
enforcement that might limit adoption of our software. We view legal action
as a last resort, to be initiated only when other community efforts have
failed to resolve the problem.

Finally, once a non-compliance issue is resolved, we hope the user will feel
welcome to join us in our efforts on this project. Working together, we will
be stronger.

Except where noted below, we speak only for ourselves, and not for any company
we might work for today, have in the past, or will in the future.

- Bjorn Andersson (Linaro)
- Andrea Arcangeli (Red Hat)
- Neil Armstrong
- Jens Axboe
- Pablo Neira Ayuso
- Khalid Aziz
- Ralf Baechle
- Felipe Balbi
- Arnd Bergmann
- Ard Biesheuvel
- Paolo Bonzini (Red Hat)
- Christian Borntraeger
- Mark Brown (Linaro)
- Paul Burton
- Javier Martinez Canillas
- Rob Clark
- Jonathan Corbet
- Vivien Didelot (Savoir-faire Linux)
- Hans de Goede (Red Hat)
- Mel Gorman (SUSE)
- Sven Eckelmann
- Alex Elder (Linaro)
- Fabio Estevam
- Larry Finger
- Bhumika Goyal
- Andy Gross
- Juergen Gross
- Shawn Guo
- Ulf Hansson
- Tejun Heo
- Rob Herring
- Masami Hiramatsu
- Michal Hocko
- Simon Horman
- Johan Hovold (Hovold Consulting AB)
- Christophe JAILLET
- Olof Johansson
- Lee Jones (Linaro)
- Heiner Kallweit
- Srinivas Kandagatla
- Jan Kara
- Shuah Khan (Samsung)
- David Kershner
- Jaegeuk Kim
- Namhyung Kim
- Colin Ian King
- Jeff Kirsher
- Greg Kroah-Hartman (Linux Foundation)
- Christian König
- Vinod Koul
- Krzysztof Kozlowski
- Viresh Kumar
- Aneesh Kumar K.V
- Julia Lawall
- Doug Ledford (Red Hat)
- Chuck Lever (Oracle)
- Daniel Lezcano
- Shaohua Li
- Xin Long (Red Hat)
- Tony Luck
- Mike Marshall
- Chris Mason
- Paul E. McKenney
- David S. Miller
- Ingo Molnar
- Kuninori Morimoto
- Borislav Petkov
- Jiri Pirko
- Josh Poimboeuf
- Sebastian Reichel (Collabora)
- Guenter Roeck
- Joerg Roedel
- Leon Romanovsky
- Steven Rostedt (VMware)
- Ivan Safonov
- Ivan Safonov
- Anna Schumaker
- Jes Sorensen
- K.Y. Srinivasan
- Heiko Stuebner
- Jiri Kosina (SUSE)
- Dmitry Torokhov
- Linus Torvalds
- Thierry Reding
- Rik van Riel
- Geert Uytterhoeven (Glider bvba)
- Daniel Vetter
- Linus Walleij
- Richard Weinberger
- Dan Williams
- Rafael J. Wysocki
- Arvind Yadav
- Masahiro Yamada
- Wei Yongjun
- Lv Zheng

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