Re: NEW ocaml licence proposal by upstream, will be part of the 3.08.1 release going into sarge.

["Bernhard R. Link" <blink@informatik.uni-freiburg.de>]

* Raul Miller <moth@debian.org> [040826 01:32]:
> You need to release your changes under the same terms you received the
> Program, or you lose your rights to distribute the Program.

Which is GPL v2, nothing else. When I receive a program dual licenced
under GPL and BSD, I can choose which I want to use. Given your
argumentation I would keep BSD and apply it to my changes...

> Nothing prevents you from releasing under GPL v2, as long as you haven't
> removed any rights granted in the license.  Among those rights are some
> rights to instead use some potential alternate versions of the GPL.

Well, first of all, the exact term is "add futher restrictions". And I
do not add further restrictions, but simply only remove the "or any
later version" part for my derived work. Thus all requirements keep the 
same, even section 9. (Though it is mostly a no-op as there is written
no "any later version" in it).

This section simply allows the copyright holder to make some easy
statement like "GPL v2 or any later version", which needs to be defined
and the licence text defines it.

> My claim is that you are not allowed to distribute GPLed software under
> terms more restrictive than those present in the GPL.

Well, that is correct. But I do not change the terms of the GPL at all,
if I do not allow the "any later version" to my changes. They are not
part of the GPL. GPL only defines what this "any later version" means.

> The GPL doesn't grant you the right to distribute gcc in a fashion where
> users of your modified version have any fewer permissions under copyright
> than you.

Wrong. When you modify e.g. gcc, you will almost always have more 
permissions than the people you gave it, too. You are the copyright
holder of your changes. If you incorporate some of your code that is
copyrightable on it's own, you can licence that part under any
other licence you want. Even if the changes were in a form that you
had to follow the gcc licence in what licence you give them away,
you still have the right to put them under some other licence as soon
as you get gcc under some other licence. Noone you give your modified
form to will have this rights normaly.

> I'll agree that if section 9 were not included in the terms of "this
> license" that you wouldn't have this requirement.  But I've not seen
> you offer any reason to believe that the terms of section 9 are not a
> part of the terms of "this license".

Nobody speaks against section 9 beeing part of the GPL. The "any later
version" is not part of the GPL.

Hochachtungsvoll,
  Bernhard R. Link

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