On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 09:16:48 +0100 Francesco Poli wrote: > The point is: which version(s) of the GNU GPL? > This is not clear at all, IMO. And I had confirmation from the FSF > that the license statement is confusing... BTW, what follows is the full quotation of the response I had from the FSF, forwarded in public with permission. On Mon, 12 Feb 2007 16:19:34 -0500 Brett Smith wrote: > Dear Francesco, > > I'm very sorry for the late response to this message. Because we are > a non-profit organization with very limited resources, we are always > working hard to keep up with new questions. > > Your e-mail raises a number of issues; I've addressed them > individually below. > > On Mon, Dec 04, 2006 at 05:37:08PM -0500, Francesco Poli via RT wrote: > > The program claims to be licensed as follows: > > > > | License: > > | Most recent version of the GPL. > > > > What does this mean? > > I simply cannot provide an answer to this question. I could offer a > number of reasonable guesses, with have no reason to say that any > given one is better than another. If you really need an answer to > this, the best you can do is contact the original licensor(s) and ask > them. > > > 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? > > The license statement is ambiguous on this point, and you are correct > to be concerned about this. > > > Is this a valid license statement at all? > > I'm not a lawyer, so I can't legitimately say whether or not such a > statement is legally valid. However, the FSF considers this sort of > statement problematic for a number of reasons, and I have already > discouraged a number of developers from adopting similar terms for > their own programs. > > If you really want to use this software, again, I encourage you to > contact the original licensor(s) for clarification. If you could > encourage them to clarify their terms, I would very much appreciate > it; we'd be happy to discuss the issue with them directly, if they'd > like. Feel free to pass on this e-mail address to them. > > If you have further questions, please let me know. > > Best regards, > > -- > Brett Smith > Licensing Compliance Engineer, Free Software Foundation > > Please note that I am not an attorney. This is not legal advice. > -- http://frx.netsons.org/progs/scripts/refresh-pubring.html Need to refresh your keyring in a piecewise fashion? ..................................................... Francesco Poli . GnuPG key fpr == C979 F34B 27CE 5CD8 DC12 31B5 78F4 279B DD6D FCF4
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