On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 08:59:53AM -0600, Matt Zagrabelny wrote: > > So your doomsday scenario is that if you license something > > GPLv2+, someone might fork and modify it to be GPLv3+, > > I was under the impression that forks couldn't change licenses. Is the > scenario which Clint describes (legally) possible? I drew up this table a few weeks back when someone was misunderstanding the GPL combination stuff. / | HELPFUL GPL UPGRADE TABLE | | | +-------+--------+-------+--------+ | | GPL-2 | GPL-2+ | GPL-3 | GPL-3+ | <========= | +-------+-------+--------+-------+--------+ \\ | | GPL-2 | GPL-2 | GPL-2 | NO!!! | NO!!! | || | +-------+-------+--------+-------+--------+ || | | GPL-2+| GPL-2 | GPL-2+ | GPL-3 | GPL-3+ | || | +-------+-------+--------+-------+--------+ || | | GPL-3 | NO!!! | GPL-3 | GPL-3 | GPL-3 | || | +-------+-------+--------+-------+--------+ || | | GPL-3+| NO!!! | GPL-3+ | GPL-3 | GPL-3+ | || | +-------+-------+--------+-------+--------+ || | ^^ || | || || |Take the license of your work || | || | and match it with the license of the work you want | to include into your work (linking, static linking, | copying into, any sort of memory sharing) | | | Find the grid that matches the two entries. | This value is the license that you may distribute | the derived work under. | | If the value is "NO!!!", then you're violating the | terms of the GPL and *MAY NOT* distribute this work. \ Didn't think I'd have to post it to a Debian mailing list, but alas. The resulting license is the work, when it's all jumbled up and combined, *not* the original code that was GPL-2+. That will stay 2+ regardless of what it's being used in, and can be taken out to restore it's 2+-eyness. Cheers, Paul -- .''`. Paul Tagliamonte <paultag@debian.org> | Proud Debian Developer : :' : 4096R / 8F04 9AD8 2C92 066C 7352 D28A 7B58 5B30 807C 2A87 `. `'` http://people.debian.org/~paultag `- http://people.debian.org/~paultag/conduct-statement.txt
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