about licenses

Rob Landley rob at landley.net
Wed Apr 19 23:14:00 UTC 2006


On Tuesday 18 April 2006 12:41 pm, Rich Felker wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 18, 2006 at 12:06:21PM -0400, Robert P. J. Day wrote:
> > On Tue, 18 Apr 2006, Paul Fox wrote:
> > > erik wrote:
> > >  > On Mon Apr 17, 2006 at 06:36:55PM -0400, Rob Landley wrote:
> > >  > > Putting "or later" in the boilerplate gives us the option to
> > >  > > move to gplv3 if it turns out not to suck.
> > >  >
> > >  > And gives folks the option of sticking with gplv2 and completely
> > >  > ignoring gplv3 if in fact gplv3 does turn out to suck or gives
> > >  > them a collective corporate anti-DRM rash, etc.
> > >
> > > i'm confused about this.  if code is licensed as "version 2 or
> > > later", is it even legal to restrict the code to just version 2 in
> > > subsequent revisions of the code?  isn't that adding a restriction
> > > that wasn't there in the first place?
> >
> > hmmmmm ... that's a good point.  on the other hand, if you licensed
> > your code as GPLv2 and GPLv3 came out and it had some *really* onerous
> > changes, i don't see that you have any obligation to follow the new
> > license.
> >
> > at the time you licensed, you agreed to GPLv2.  i don't see how the
> > FSF could suddenly force you to re-license just because *they* changed
> > their minds.  that would be equivalent to unilaterally rewriting the
> > terms of a contract without the other person's permission, wouldn't
> > it?
>
> It depends. If you said v2 or later then you allowed distribution
> under v3. However, there are possibly limitations:
>
> One, it's probably not entirely possible (in the legal sense) to grant
> license under future conditions that aren't even written yet. It would
> probably be your responsibility though to go back and clarify that you
> do not intend to allow distribution under v3 if you found v3 very
> onerous though. Of course IANAL, YMMV, etc.

BZZZZZT.  Thanks for playing.

If that was true than the options and futures markets on wall street would dry 
up.  If you gamble on the FSF's good graces and lose, that's your problem.  
You can put out NEW versions that are GPLv2 only, but the old ones still say 
"or later" and the permission grant wasn't conditional on anything.

> Two, GPL v2 states, in the portion about using "v2 or later", that
> future versions will follow the same spirit and that they will not
> differ wildly from v2. Along with this statement, I think that anyone
> who authored software under "v2 or later" would be very well entitled
> to subsequently refuse to license under v3 if v3 were horribly
> different in spirit from v2.

You can also stick with v2 as long as you like.

> Keep in mind there are only two possible problems with dual licensing
> under v3:
>
> 1. v3 could allow people to misappropriate your code in proprietary
>    ways, undermining the copyleft you intended. Given the FSF's
>    position and bylaws I do not think this is a realistic scenario and
>    it would be ridiculous to worry about it.
>
> 2. v3 could introduce new conditions (such as anti-DRM, patent
>    retaliation, or net-app type stuff) designed to protect the freedom
>    of software, but which conflict with bad things you want to do with
>    your own GPL-covered program.

Such as cryptographically sign source tarballs that uniquely indicate who they 
came from without having to give out your private key upon request, or keep 
your binary size small without a mandatory license announcement command line 
option...

Your inability to envison complications does not constrain the universe.

Rob
-- 
Never bet against the cheap plastic solution.



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