Re: upstream changing from GPL-2+ to GPL-3+ without copyright holders permission
* Roberto:
> On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 11:37:22PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote:
>> In general, I agree. But there might be cases that are less
>> clear-cut. For example, if the upgrade from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+ is used
>> to gain permission to combine the work with an AGPL work, especially
>> if this is done in an “open core” context. Or if the author clearly
>> intended that uploading the original (GPLv2+) work to someone else's
>> computer was distribution under the GPLv2 terms, and the GPLv3 upgrade
>> is used primarily to circumvent that.
>
> I don't understand that. If the author provides written permission to
> upgrade to a later version but he don't really want people to do that,
> it looks to me like lying. He should either clarify the cases where the
> upgrade is not wanted, or avoid writing those permissions at all.
The alternative explanation is that the FSF did something unexpected,
from the author's point of view.
>> I also think that in general, Debian should try to respect copyright
>> holders' wishes, even if the project is not required to do so.
>> Disregarding authors rarely leads to good outcomes.
>
> I would want to be respectful, of course, but how can I respect
> copyright holders' wishes when they say something and want something
> different instead?
Many authors provide conflicting license statements. It's not
unusual. In the extreme case, it makes the software undistributable
and unsuitable for Debian.
> If those unwritten exceptions are common, I've probably violated
> authors' whises a lot of times already :(
I was mainly talking about written clarifications, not unvoiced
thoughts of the authors.
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