RFH: GPLv3

[Nicholas Nethercote]

On Fri, 13 Jul 2007, Alexandre Oliva wrote:

>> One way to view it:  the license is a feature.  Therefore changing the
>> license is changing a feature.
>
> Every release of GCC in the past decade (and then some) was GPLv2+.
> GPLv3 has always been one of the options.
>
> Anyone who had their heads in the sand for the past 18 months when
> GPLv3 was being publicly discussed and developed, or wasn't at the GCC
> Summit last year when I mentioned that the FSF would most certainly
> want to upgrade the license of every project whose copyright it held
> as soon as GPLv3 was ready, may indeed consider the license upgrade as
> a surprising new feature.
>
> But anyone who wanted to participate was welcome to do so, and GPLv3
> shouldn't be a surprise for anyone who did, or even just watched it
> from a distance.
>
> Now, why should we weaken our defenses for the sake of those who
> didn't plan for something that could have been so easily forecast 18
> months ago, and that was even planned to be finished 4 months ago?
> Heck, the last-call draft, published one month before the final
> release, was so close to the final release that non-insider lawyers
> who were on top of the process managed to emit solid opinions about
> the final license the day after it was released.
>
> It's those who didn't do their homework and didn't plan ahead for this
> predictable upgrade who should be burdened now, rather than all of us
> having to accept weaker defenses for our freedoms or facing additional
> requirements on patches or backports.  It was all GPLv2+, and this
> means permission for *anyone* to upgrade to GPLv3+.  The license
> upgrade path is the easy path, and that's by design.

I was just suggesting a rationale for choosing a version number.

Nick