Re: [gNewSense-users] KFV question no licence or author

[Bake Timmons]

> When you find a file without author or licence, is assumed that is part
> of the kernel and licenced under GPLv2. You will find this in some
> Makefile. In the other hand there is the possibility of a licence not
> specified, like "this is under GNU licence", without a version of the
> licence. Then you must email the author and ask about the file.

By "under GNU license", I think you mean "under the GPL".  I recall
different answers to this question from the thread:

http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnewsense-users/2008-03/threads.html#00072

It seems that we do *not* have to ask the author at all, since he has
already granted us the choice(*), and we choose GPLv2 to be compatible
with the Torvald's choice for the larger work.  Now if we wanted to
distribute such a file as GPLv3, then I would ask the author, because we
can only assume that he had the Linux kernel in mind when he used that
language.

(*) Text found in all three versions of the GPL:

"If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you
may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation."