Should we drop the "or later" after GPLv2?

Glenn L McGrath bug1 at ihug.co.nz
Sat Aug 19 13:10:12 UTC 2006


On Sat, 19 Aug 2006 00:30:34 -0400
Rob Landley <rob at landley.net> wrote:

> Bernhard and Erik: what do you think about dropping the "or later"
> from the BusyBox license and going to straight v2?

If being able to merge code from other projects is a big priority then
the conservative thing to do would be to stick with GPLv2 or later for
12 months or so and see how well the GPLv3 is accepted.

The decision does have long term implications for the project, so i
dont think its something we should rush into.

Personally i dont have a problem with GPLv3 draft is ive read about it
so far, if it makes it easier to crack down on corporate freeloaders
like tivo then its a good thing.

Even if the GPLv3 turned out to be everything Linus ever wanted the
Linux kernel could never move to it because its practically impossible
to get everyone who has contributed to it to agree to anything.

If we remove the (or later) clause like Linux did, then it has similar
implications for us in the future.



Glenn



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