Alfred M. Szmidt wrote:
No, the Authors clearly stated that only v2 applies for the kernel as a whole, again single files may be under a different license (GPL compatible), and so, some of them may be under a GPL version that allow them to be used with the future GPLv3 license.
If the GPLv2 applies to the whole kernel, then it applies to all files, single files cannot get special treatment. See section 2(b) of the GPL.
Single files can get special treatment individually when not part of the whole collection.
2(b) does not prevent the offering alternative licenses. Where such alternatives conflict with GPL2 (as GPL3 does) those files cannot be distributed under license of GPL3 with the GPL2 files.
What might stop them being individually distributed is that they may be derivative works of some of the GPL2 only files, so although what you say is not absolutely true it is probably true for the kernel where most files are partial derivative works of another file and the kernel is not a linked aggregation of seperate units.
Sam