David Edelsohn wrote:
Leaving released branches as GPLv2 is not an option.Dave> What, even *closed* release branches? The comment referred to GCC 4.2. GCC 4.2 branch may not remain under GPLv2. GCC 4.1 branch may not remain under GPLv2. Closing the GCC 4.2 branch is impractical -- we must provide support until the next feature release, currently called GCC 4.3. Any patches backported to a release branch from mainline after mainline is relicensed to GPLv3 will cause the branch to be subject to GPLv3, unless the original author explicitly contributes the patch to the branch under GPLv2.
I don't think that's true. Given that all copyrights are assigned to the FSF, the FSF could license these changes as GPLv2+ (in 4.2) and GPLv3+ (in 4.3 and up) without a problem. The original author's wishes do not come into play.
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