Re: [glob2-devel] Version 3 of GPL license issued yesterday

[Cyrille Dunant]

On Monday 02 July 2007 19.59:30 Martin Voelkle wrote:
> On 7/2/07, Cyrille Dunant <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Saturday 30 June 2007 11.32:38 Kieran P wrote:
> > > Ok. Then all someone needs to do is update the COPYING file in master
> > > branch, and it will be included in all future versions.
> > >
> > > Does anyone actually have a list of changes from version 2 though? Is
> > > it just rewritten after 16 years to make things clearer and include
> > > some little things in it? For all we know, it could grant someone the
> > > permission to take over a project when inactive for a certain period of
> > > time. Who knows ^_^
> > >
> > > Regards
> > > Kieran
> >
> > Actually, to change the license from 2 or above to 3 or above, you _must_
> > have the permission of all authors.
>
> Really? You just happen to have code licensed under version 2 or
> above, chose a subset (version 3 and above) of all the licenses you
> can chose from, and distribute the work under all these licenses.

No, because the _minimum_ license is set in any case by the statement, and 
this minimum cannot be changed without the permission of all authors. This is 
in fact independent of the fact that under most European jurisdictions you 
cannot in fact enforce the "or above" clause, because an contract cannot 
enacted without the clauses being available to all parties.

> > As of yet, the "auto-upgrade" really means that the code is currently
> > dual-licensed GPL v2 and GPL v3.
>
> Dual-licensing means you can chose which license (out of 2 licenses)
> you agree to. By induction, you can extend that to an infinite set of
> version n or above licenses, and agree with all the versions n+1 or
> above, effectively stopping the distribution under license version n.

True, but currently, there exists only v 2(.1) and v3, thus making it 
currently _dual_ licensed.

> > Note also that v2 and v3 are incompatible, essentially because v3 _adds_
> > restrictions.
>
> But "v2 or later" can be redistributed under "v3 or later".

No, they can be redistributed as v2 or later, which means that the licensee 
may use the additional permissions granted by v3. If there are none, well, 
though.

> That's how I interpret the "v2 or later" clauses. IMHO, IANAL, etc.

You might want to check on the GNU's project site, then :)

Have fun

 -- CFD