Re: Java, GPL and CDDL
On Thu, Nov 15, 2007 at 09:09:04PM +0100, Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> I think that being a lawyer you will agree that "<existing version> or
> later" is *at most* a permission given by the original licensor to
> direct licensees (i.e. parties entering version two contract) to
> SUBLICENSE (licensees can become sublicensors if they wish) licensed
> work to other parties under later version of license contract.
> Original licensor just can't somehow magically become a party to a
> contract which wasn't even drafted at the time when license contract
> offer was made to public.
I agree that the wording in question is concerned with sublicensing
rather than changing the original licence terms. The relevant wording
is "you can redistribute it and/or modify it under either version 2 of
the License, or (at your option) any later version." And it's
"redistribution" that I was referring to in my email.
> The other rather curious aspect regarding GPLv3 and sublicensing is
> that the GPL actually bites itself: while original GPLv2 licensors may
> well allow sublicensing under the GPLv3, in its "Automatic Licensing
> of Downstream Recipients" provision the GPLv3 names *original
> licensors* and not sublicensors as parties offering a license to
> downstream recipients. And that means GPLv2, not GPLv3. Go figure.
I confess I've not really given much thought to how clause 10 of v3
interacts with v2. The problem seems to be that v2 is saying "You, the
licensee, can sublicense under v3, when it arrives", while v3 is
saying "You, the licensee, can't sublicense, and instead of this the
original licensor is now deemed to have licensed the person to whom
you convey the work".
I suspect the argument would be that a licensor who has included the
"or later" wording has, by doing so, given permission to the
downstream users. And that is the fundamental issue from the
downstream user's POV: has the original licensor given me permission
to use this software? A sublicence is just an indirect way for the
original licensor to do that, so the conceptual jump between v2 and v3
isn't really a problem.
If we get away from ambiguous, technical-sounding terms like "licence"
and think instead in terms of permissions, GPL v2 says "I, the
licensor, give you, the licensee, permission to sublicence to the
downstream user under v3 (even though I don't yet know what that says,
because it hasn't been written yet)". But that is not really any
different from saying, "I, the licensor, [indirectly] give the
downstream user permission to use this software in accordance with
v3". Which is what clause 10 of v3 says.
All this is highly OT, of course, and the question probably comes down
to whether one views the GPL as a non-contractual licence or as a
contract: a highly vexed question that is probably best avoided here
for now, except to say that the above argument would seem to fall
apart if the GPL is a contract.
John
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