Re: [gentoo-dev] GPL-2 vs GPL-2+

["Kevin F. Quinn" <kevquinn@gentoo.org>]

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On Wed, 3 Jan 2007 10:18:51 +0100
Paul de Vrieze <pauldv@gentoo.org> wrote:

> I know that I'm a bit late on this, but to me the "version 2 or
> later" is a license by itself. Let's call it GPL-RENEW and let the
> file have contents like:
> "This package is licensed with the version x or later clause for the
> GPL."

This is effectively what Diego was proposing with the 'GPL-2+' name.

> The LICENSE would then be:
> LICENSE="GPL-2 GPL-RENEW"
>
> The advantage being that the renew clause is version independent, we
> don't lose information, don't have to mutilate licenses (by adding
> text). If desired it could even be used as LICENSE="|| (GPL-2 GPL-3)
> GPL-RENEW"

This isn't necessary - by creating the 'GPL-2+' license name, the only
thing that's not fully correct as things stand is that packages that
can be accepted with GPL-2 or later won't be accepted if the user has
just GPL-3 in ACCEPT_LICENSES.  Over time this can be fixed, by
replacing "GPL-2" with "GPL-2+" in the LICENSE variable for the
relevant packages.

The the meaning of each license name would be strictly:

GPL-2 : Only licensed under GPL v2
GPL-3 : Only licensed under GPL v3
GPL-2+ : Licensed under GPL v2 or later

Which gives everyone what they need; those wanting GPL-2 or later would
have ACCEPT_LICENSES="GPL-2 GPL-3 GPL-2+".


For me, the only other sane alternative would be to use license groups
(assuming license groups can be specified in the LICENSE variable).  I
don't recall the status of license groups in portage.

-- 
Kevin F. Quinn

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