Re: RFH: GPLv3
Krzysztof Halasa wrote: Michael Eager [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Not until someone updates the txt. Which should happen quickly, but if someone applies a GPLv3 patch to a previously GPLv2 branch, the entire branch becomes GPLv3, whether the COPYING file was updated or not. Come on, if the FSF (the copyright holder) distributes a program, and if the included licence says GPLv2+, then the licence is GPLv2+ and you'll have a really hard time trying to convince anyone that it's different. You asked if COPYING would be updated. The answer is not necessarily. The COPYING text may say GPLv2+, but if there has been a GPLv3 patch applied to the branch, then the entire branch is GPLv3. I struggle to believe this. Afaik a bunch of code is released under a license, and nothing has the power to magically change that license. If someone applies a GPLv3 patch to some GPLv2 code and releases the whole under the GPLv2, then that person has broken copyright law and the release is invalid (because the GPLv3 code has been released without a license), but the rest of the GPLv2 code is still GPLv2. Or have I missed something here? It sounds to me like the syntactic mischief Microsoft is playing when it calls the GPL viral (note, I'm not suggesting that you are making mischief, just that the implication is similar)! BTW: the copyright holder is free to take a GPLv3 patch and release it under GPLv2 (and any other licence). FSF is the copyright holder. As of this time, they have said that they are not willing to release patches under GPLv2 for application to GPLv2 branches. Mark has a proposal which would allow for that. I think this misses a point: FSF is a copyright assignee, and I don't know how that relates to holding, but the person who wrote the patch is free to dual-license without reference to the FSF. So as a completely fabricated example: say in 6 months Richard Kenner makes a patch to (GPLv3) mainline for a bug, and you want that patch to improve a GPLv2 product that you're maintaining for one of your customers. You are free to ask Richard to release that patch to you under GPLv2, and Richard is free to grant that request.
Re: RFH: GPLv3
Robert Dewar wrote: One could of course just take a blanket view that everything on the site is, as of a certain moment, licensed under GPLv3 (note you don't have to change file headers to achieve this, the file headers have no particular legal significance in any case). According to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-howto.html, the file headers are precisely the place to make the license grant. That at least would be clean, and anyone concerned with accepting GPLv3 stuff would simply know that as of this date and time, they should no longer download ANYTHING from the entire gnu.org site. That's actually not so terrible, you lose some users temporarily, but at least there is no misunderstanding. There would be gross misunderstanding! Placing everything on gnu.org under GPLv3 does nothing to affect all of its mirrors. So if I download gcc-4.2.0.tar.bz2 from ftp.gnu.org then it's GPLv3, but if I download it from any of the mirrors then it's GPLv2. Surely the aim of the process should be to eliminate gotchas as much as possible. Everyone has the responsibility to verify that they have a license before using someone else's code. How could I, as the recipient of a file which says GPLv2 etc at the top, know that it was downloaded from gnu.org and is actually really GPLv3?
Re: RFH: GPLv3
As a (non-developer) user, may I humbly submit a slightly different view: The change of license is an Event, which needs to be marked in concrete by a version number change. All future mainline development will be under the GPLv3. However, there are many people who (due to legal or commercial pressures, amongst others) are required to continue under GPLv2, and there doesn't seem to be a good pragmatic reason to actively penalise those people. I think that having one more GPLv2 release, and then all future releases under GPLv3, creates a discontinuity in the compiler between licenses which may be unhelpful because the first GPLv3 gcc will be technically different to the last GPLv2 gcc. This means that the decision about which to use will be a combination of license issues and technical issues. So, could there be a simultaneous release of gcc under GPLv2 and GPLv3, identical in all respects except for the license? The GPLv2 release will represent the best-quality compiler that the project can deliver, as a base for those who must continue to support it. The GPLv3 release will be the reference point for future development, and will be a known quantity in technical terms. The GPLv2 compiler could be gcc 4.2.1, and the GPLv3 compiler could be gcc 4.3.0. There is an issue that people have been hearing about the new functionalities that gcc 4.3 will have, but it shouldn't be too hard to market the concept that 4.3 is now a license change version, and 4.4 will be the compiler that 4.3 was going to be. Perhaps the simultaneous release could be done on July 31, which is iirc the FSF's deadline for GPLv2 releases. Extending the gcc 4.2.1 release date might allow some last-minute bug-fixes to make it in there. Compiler vendors etc will have an increased workload maintaining the separability of GPLv2 and GPLv3 code during the transition to the new license, and it would seem that the transition will take quite some time (years?), but I'm sure that they will develop procedures to make it manageable. Cheers, Rob Brown.
