Re: GPL version, "at your option"?
From: Kyle Moffett
Date: Wed Nov 17 2004 - 21:17:31 EST
On Nov 17, 2004, at 20:04, David Schwartz wrote:
Your logic is totally flawed. Successor versions can certainly add
limitations.
Your logic is equally flawed.
Consider the following hypothetical, GPL version 3 allows you to
relicense
the code under the FreeBSD license. Someone relicenses Linux (with
lots of
later modification) under the FreeBSD license. Now people who receive
the
binaries from this new stream of Linux are not entitled to the source
code.
s/relicense/distribute/g; You can't relicense code without owning the
original
copyright. You _can_ however, receive a license to distribute.
If I receive a binary from them, I receive the original "dual" license.
This means
that anyone who receives it may license it using GPL version "2" or, at
their
option, any later version. This means that when I get some binaries
from some
random company that used your mythical version 3 to distribute under the
terms of any BSD license, I _also_ receive a license to the same code
under
the terms of GPL v2 (at my option :-D). This means that since my
license from
company X is GPL v2 (at my option), I must receive sources under GPL
v2. In
practice this means that you _can't_ change much of what the GPL says in
future versions, at least as far as I can see, without causing said
future version
to be legally invalid.
Suppose GPL version 3 has no requirement that you make the source
available. I can then ship Linux without making any source available
at all
by claiming that I'm using that later version at my option.
And I can equally legally demand the sources under GPL version 2, at my
option, and you will be forced to give them to me, not at your option
:-D.
Cheers,
Kyle Moffett
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