Re: [gentoo-dev] Watch out for license changes to GPL-3.

[Dominique Michel <dominique.michel@citycable.ch>]

Le Sun, 08 Jul 2007 09:06:09 -0400,
Seemant Kulleen <seemant@gentoo.org> a écrit :

> On Sun, 2007-07-08 at 13:50 +0200, Wulf C. Krueger wrote:
> > On Sunday, 08. July 2007 13:04:24 Marijn Schouten (hkBst) wrote:
> > > What about moving Gentoo stuff to `GPLv3 or later'?
> > 
> > I'm strongly opposed to the "or later" part for the simple reason that 
> > this implicates we will agree with stuff we don't even know yet. 
> 
> Hear hear.  That's why we removed the "or later" rubbish from our
> licenses about 4 years ago.
> 
> 
> > I haven't studied GPL-3 fully yet so I haven't formed an opinion about 
> > moving to it alone.
> 
> 
> I'm not certain what it buys us to move to v3, to be honest.  Unless
> there are compelling reasons to do so, I don't think it's worth the
> effort to change it.
> 
> Seemant
> 

The problem is when you want to move. If the original statement is "GPL-2 or
later", it is just to move to whatever gpl>2 you want to move.

With the original statement "GPL-2" alone, you have to take contact and get an
authorisation to move from each single programmer that contributed code into
the project.

I personally think at gpl-3 is better as gpl-2 because GPLv3 will block
tivoization. Tivoization means computers (called “appliances”) contain
GPL-covered software that you can't change, because the appliance shuts down if
it detects modified software. The usual motive for tivoization is that the
software has features the manufacturer thinks lots of people won't like. The
manufacturers of these computers take advantage of the freedom that free
software provides, but they don't let you do likewise. see
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/rms-why-gplv3.html

If you want to migrate to GPL-3, the most important question to solve will be:
is it possible to get an agreement to do that migration from every single
programmer involved in gentoo?

My 2 c. contrib.

Dominique

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