Hello, I found a strange permission notice in a program, referring to the GPL, and I'm not sure about its meaning. The program claims to be licensed as follows: | | License: | Most recent version of the GPL. | I've never seen anything like this. I saw "GPL v2 or later", "GPL v2 only", "GPL" (which automatically means "any version"[1]), even "GPL v1 or later", but I've never seen "GPL latest version"... [1] because of the rules stated in GPLv2#9 What does this mean? The GNU GPL v3 will probably be more restrictive than v2, at least in some respects. Assume I download the program now: I get it under the terms of GNU GPL v2. What will happen as soon as GPL v3 is out in its final form? Will I still be able to exercise the rights granted by GPL v2 on my copy of the program? Or does it automagically become licensed under GPL v3? Is this possible at all? Section 9 of GPL v2 does not specify any meaning for the above-quoted permission notice. It explains the meaning of a "GPL vX or later" licensing and of a "GPL" licensing. It does not explicitly talk about "GPL vX only" licensing, because it is self-explanatory, I think. But nothing is said about a "GPL latest version" licensing... Is this a valid license statement at all? A possible tentative interpretation could be that, at any given instant, I can get the program under the terms of the GNU GPL version which is the latest at that time. But, once I got it under a particular version of the GNU GPL, that license grant is irrevocable, and hence I don't have to worry about later versions that are published by FSF, unless I want to redownload the program. Is that a correct interpretation? Could you please explain? P.S.: Please note that I'm Cc:ing the debian-legal public mailing list, since the issue has been previously raised there. Could you please keep debian-legal in Cc: in your reply? Thanks. -- But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend. -- from _Coming to America_ ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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