Re: RFH: GPLv3

[David Gressett <jdgressett at amli-denton dot com>]

$.02 from a user who has been following the discussion:

1. Don't jack with the version numbers. This is confusing.
2. Turn off public access to the code while changing license text in the 
source.
3. Backports to current stuff should stay under current licence, i.e. a 
gcc 4.2.1  containing bits and pieces of 4.3 should stay under GPLv2 
until 4.3 is released. If a 4.2.2 comes out after the release of 4.3, it 
should go to GPLv3. I.e,  all open branches should change licenses at once.
4. gcc should put a short reference to the license in the version 
string.  My MingGW version of gcc describes itself as
"gcc version 3.4.5 (mingw special)"  A future MinGW version should do 
something like "gcc version 4.3.0 (mingw  special) GPLv3".  Every vendor 
who distributes a tweaked gcc should be requested to to implement this ASAP.
5. It probably wouldn't hurt to have a command-line option to describe 
the license(s) in more detail. This would be especially useful when 
using compilers from vendors like AdaCore  who have products like GNAT 
GPL which has a run-time library that is governed by GPL rather than LGPL.
6. gcc isn't the only software product that will be affected by 
confusion about the license. gcc should provide a small license-display 
library that users can use in their own products. This would be easy 
enough for any user to implement, but if it comes with gcc, it would be 
more likely to be widely used.