Re: GPL "or any greater version"
> > If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies
> > to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the
> > terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version
> > published by the Free Software Foundation.
On Fri, Aug 27, 2004 at 02:37:47PM -0400, Michael Poole wrote:
> I omit your "expansions" of this because I think they are somewhere
> between exercises in silliness and exercises in perversity.
In other words: you disagree, but don't want to express any specific
disagreement.
> There are three obvious remarks to make:
>
> First, the GPL does not use "version" anywhere in the license text to
> refer to the Program, only to the GPL itself.
This is the point in dispute.
> The only place that it mentions version is "Gnomovision version 69"
> in the explanation of how to use the GPL to protect your program,
> which is not part of the license itself.
I agree that the word "version" is used to refer to an instance of the
program, here.
> Second, your proposed reading of "any later version published by the
> Free Software Foundation" has a big problem for the large fraction of
> GPLed software that is *not* published by the FSF.
That was an exact quote, not a "proposed reading".
See also http://www.fsf.org/licenses/info/GPLv2orLater.html
> Finally, the example of how to use that phrase -- and how it is
> generally used in copyright notices -- is this:
>
> This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
> (at your option) any later version.
This is a rephrasing, not an attempt to preserve grammatical structure
with illustrative concrete nouns.
I disagree with this rephrasing in part because the use of concrete
nouns in the place of abstract nouns shows a different meaning for the
grammar used in the license.
I also disagree because the meaning you're suggesting conflicts with
the structure of the license as a whole. [It would create a number
of internal conflicts in interpretation of the GPL, in a variety of
situations.]
> Your reading of GPLv2 section 9 is totally unsupported.
If that's the case you should have no problem providing specific
objections to my examples which used concrete nouns and the same
grammatical structures.
--
Raul
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