[OPEN-ILS-DEV] Copyright issues

[Scott McKellar]

--- Dan Scott <denials at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 19/01/2008, Scott McKellar <mck9 at swbell.net> wrote:
> > No code here -- this post is about legal issues.
> 
> As an aside, the assertion that Linus couldn't relicense Linux under
> GPL v3 is debatable, as the GPL v2 license includes the clause: "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".

The language you cite is what the FSF recommends for inclusion in
the source code as a pointer to the license.  It is not part of the
GPL 2 license itself.  It is entirely possible, and in fact fairly
common, to license something under GPL 2 only, without the "any 
later version" option.  That's how the Linux kernel is licensed as
a collective work, and presumably most of the individual components
as well.

As I understand it, Linus didn't include the "any later version"
language because he didn't want to give the FSF a blank check to 
change the licensing out from under him.  As it turns out it's just
as well, because he doesn't like the GPL 3 anyway for his purposes.

If Linus did want to switch to GPL 3, as a practical matter it would
be nearly impossible for him to do so.  He would have to obtain the
consent of thousands of contributors, some of whom have no doubt
disappeared or died, and replace the contributions of those who
didn't consent.

Scott McKellar
http://home.swbell.net/mck9/ct/