Re: Plan to release a gplv3 compliant debian-based release
On Fri, Jul 05, 2013 at 04:14:57PM +0300, Uoti Urpala wrote:
[snip]
> a post from Alan Cox explaining this. I don't see why you would post
> your link again in full quote after that without explaining why you
> still thought Linus wasn't wrong.
I posted it fully because the parent I responded to said that we
shouldn't just post links, thus I interpreted it as though the full
text of that link was prefered.
As for my opinions:
While Alan's opinions are certainly relevant for the large amounts of
code *he* has participated, I think anyone would be hard pressed to
argue that the kernel as a whole work doesn't originate from Linus.
Like it or not, Linus's word carries weight. And even should none other
than Linus himself want their code to remain GPLv2 only and if we could
assume that we could solve the issue of dead contributors (neither of
which seems likely) I think that the burden of identifying and rewriting
all code contributed by Linus himself would be more taxing than having
the GPLv3 proponents build their own distribution based around GNU/HURD
instead.
Personally I'd be furious if anyone tried to fork one of my
projects or one of the projects I've contributed to and turn it GPLv3
only, since that's not the terms I contributed to that particular
project under. I usually license my code as GPLv2 or later because I'm
way more comfortable with the GPLv2 than the GPLv3, but to allow
code reuse for other projects I still leave the GPLv3 door open though.
I'm perfectly happy if someone takes my GPLv2 or later code and uses it
as GPLv3 in a different project, since I'm happy to share my code
(and in most cases I can even be persuaded to offer my code under LGPL,
BSD or what not that people might need if it's found useful for another
project), but IMO a fork of a project *just to turn it into GPLv3* is
reprehensible.
If the GPLv3 was GPLv2 compatible (so that I could take any GPLv3 code
and use it in a GPLv2 project without the project as a whole turning
GPLv2) then it'd be fine. But since that's not the case (GPLv2 can
be turned GPLv3, but not vice versa) I'm very much opposed to such
behaviour.
Why?
Because what I like about copyleft licenses is that they (at least try
to) force equality -- contributors have to give the same rights to their
downstreams as they were given themselves. Forking a project and
altering the license from GPLv2 to GPLv3 does *not* pass that test.
Kind regards, David
--
/) David Weinehall <tao@debian.org> /) Rime on my window (\
// ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ // Diamond-white roses of fire //
\) http://www.acc.umu.se/~tao/ (/ Beautiful hoar-frost (/
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