Re: [gentoo-dev] Non-free software in Gentoo

[Richard Freeman <rich0@gentoo.org>]

On 12/28/2009 01:56 PM, Robin H. Johnson wrote:
> Actually, this is a case where the license on the ebuild is wrong, not
> the license group. The kernel ebuilds should have GPL-2 and something
> else, and by definition should not pass @FSF-APPROVED alone.

Is this appropriate?  The kernel sources indicate that they are licensed 
under GPLv2, and they make no mention of other licenses for any 
component of the sources.

Perhaps Linus/etc are wrong about this - but shouldn't that be something 
that people take up with them, unless Gentoo gets a letter from some 
lawyers claiming that we're infringing?

For that matter, for all we know kdelibs contains 10 lines of code from 
Jack Smith, who didn't agree to the LGPL and those 10 lines are under 
the Jack Smith Distribution License.  However, it would be best if Jack 
Smith were to take this up with the KDE team and not with every distro 
that uses KDE.

If Gentoo starts second-guessing the licenses on packages, do we then 
become liable if we fail to do this for a package?