On Dec 13, 2009, at 2:24 AM, Anthony W. Youngman wrote: > In message <f4ccec28-fe42-4af3-b0c0-c832a6b0d...@dalkescientific.com>, Andrew > Dalke <da...@dalkescientific.com> writes >> Well, the GPL does allow relicensing to newer versions of the GPL... > > IT DOESN'T, ACTUALLY !!! > > Read what the GPL says, CAREFULLY.
Here is relevant commentary in Rosen's book "Open Source Licensing" book at http://rosenlaw.com/Rosen%5FCh06.pdf > This GPL section 4, with its negative wording, is also the only place that > references the right to sublicense. One might assume from the way GPL section > 4 is worded that the right to sublicense was intended in sections 1 (right to > copy), 2 (right to modify) and 3 (right to distribute) as well. However, > section 6 implies that there are no sublicenses but instead a direct license > from each up-stream contributor: ... > As to sublicensing, then, the GPL is ambiguous. I refer you to the discussion > in Chapter 5 of sublicensing in the MIT license. Sublicensing rights can be > very important to open source distributors for dealing properly with the > chain of title to contributions. In practice, most software projects ignore > the issue completely and assume that, for GPL software, only the most recent > license in the chain of title matters. They assume that GPL licensed software > is sublicenseable, but the GPL isn’t clear about that. I will try to use the word "sublicense" in the future as that seems more precise. As you can tell, a professional lawyer in this field is not clear about if the GPLv2 allows sublicensing, so I hope it's understandable how someone could view a change from GPLv2 to GPLv3 without keeping the chain of titles (which is the common practice) could be considered a relicense. Best regards, Andrew da...@dalkescientific.com -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-legal-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
