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

[Glenn Maynard <glenn@zewt.org>]

On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 09:29:43AM -0400, Brian Thomas Sniffen wrote:
> > The FSF could release a GPL version 3 which has completely arbitrary
> > terms.  If control of the FSF had passed to someone unscrupulous, these
> > terms might be proprietary.  [I'm not saying this is a likely scenario,
> > just a possible one -- I hope this hypothesis seems particularly
> > outrageous.]

Well, in theory not--"such new versions will be similar in spirit to the
present version".  That vague limitation isn't particularly reassuring,
of course.

> This is where you lose me.  The FSF releases their GPL v3, which is
> suspiciously similar to a Microsoft EULA.  Now what?  The change I
> submitted, which is distributed with GCC, is licensed only under GPL
> v2.

Earlier, I wrote a reply asking about things like "v2 vs. v2-or-greater
compatibility" and so on; but after thinking about it for a while, and
rereading the GPL, I realized this is a very common mistaken idea: you
*can not* release your work under "GPL v2, not greater".  GPL#9 says
"if you release under v2, upgrades are allowed".  If you want to release
under v2 without allowing upgrades, you'd have to revoke clause 9--which
would be GPL-incompatible, so you can't do that to your gcc contribution.

The practice of writing "GPL v2" in their licenses when they mean to deny
upgrades is wrong--"or greater" is implied by GPL#9.

(Raul said a similar thing, but I thought I'd explain it from the perspective
of one who, until yesterday, held the same belief as you.)

-- 
Glenn Maynard