On 23/07/13 13:51, magicbanana wrote: > Relicensing Linux is practically impossible. Because there were > contribution from tens (hundreds?) thousands of developers and no > copyright assignment, there are as many copyright holders. Each of > them should explicitly agree to any relicensing.
A relicensing of an entire kernel wouldn't have to happen overnight, or even in five years. What if the Linux kernel contributors eventually decided they liked the GPLv3, and set out to make the kernel GPLv3-compatible in a decade. All it would require is for developers to agree to license future contributions under the GPLv2 or later. New device drivers come about and occasionally old ones sometimes become deprecated. A significant amount code gets refactored and replaced over a decade period. Apparently some kernel developers have always licensed their code GPLv2+, so it's not like all code has to be replaced. It would be interesting to see how much of the kernel from ten years ago has been replaced now. I think a timeframe of ten years could be feasible (but I'm not a kernel dev or a relicensing expert, so maybe I'm wrong - I can only speculate). But I don't think this would ever happen. Kernel developers do what they do best: write code. Although I think the GPLv3 solves problems and is better than the GPLv2 (especially the TiVoisation clause), I think it would be a waste of time to try attempting to convince the kernel devs, as many have already made up their minds. There are more important things to spend time on. Maybe other projects will be convinced to use the GPLv3. Andrew.
