RFH: GPLv3

[Michael Eager]

Alexandre Oliva wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2007, Robert Dewar <dewar@adacore.com> wrote:
> 
> See, I'm not diminishing the importance of licensing issues, I'm just
> saying it's legally irresponsible to sit back and *not* even watch
> what's going on in the development of the license 

Everybody's been watching.  The license has changed many times.
There's been on-going conflict between FSF and Linux.  There's
been widely publicized conflicts about about DRM, and Novell/Microsoft,
patent license and other issues.  It's been like watching a cat
fight -- fur flying everywhere.

No lawyer is going to spend his time trying to sort out
the effect of the license until it is finalized.

> Some people are advocating that patches be under GPLv2+, to enable
> earlier releases with backports to remain in GPLv2.  Since GPLv2 has
> weaker defenses for users' freedoms than GPLv3, against those who
> might wish to impose restrictions on these freedoms, GPLv2-compatible
> patches would enable backports into more weakly-defended releases.
> The weaker defenses stem mainly out of uncertainty as to the extent of
> "no further restrictions".

GPLv2 has been effective for many years.  It doesn't stop being
effective overnight.

Let's tone down the high falootin' rhetoric about defending freedoms
and discuss the pragmatic issues of how to manage licenses in a
real world with real companies and real lawyers and real concerns.

-- 
Michael Eager	 eager@eagercon.com
1960 Park Blvd., Palo Alto, CA 94306  650-325-8077