linux-kernel - Re: GPLv3 Position Statement

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Date:	Thu, 28 Sep 2006 23:22:21 -0700 (PDT)
From:	Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...l.org>
To:	Neil Brown <neilb@...e.de>
cc:	Jörn Engel <joern@...nheim.fh-wedel.de>,
	Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@...lub.uwaterloo.ca>,
	Chase Venters <chase.venters@...entec.com>,
	Sergey Panov <sipan@...an.org>,
	Patrick McFarland <diablod3@...il.com>,
	Theodore Tso <tytso@....edu>,
	Alan Cox <alan@...rguk.ukuu.org.uk>,
	Jan Engelhardt <jengelh@...ux01.gwdg.de>,
	James Bottomley <James.Bottomley@...eleye.com>,
	linux-kernel <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: Re: GPLv3 Position Statement

On Fri, 29 Sep 2006, Neil Brown wrote:
> On Thursday September 28, torvalds@...l.org wrote:
> > 
> > Btw, it should be stated here: I'm not advocating either of the above. If 
> > a license says "v2 or later", anybody who removes an explicit right 
> > granted by the people who originally wrote and worked on the code is just 
> > being a total a-hole.
> 
> But isn't that the whole point - to replace v2 by v3?

I'm sure it's the point for the FSF. Is it really the point for anybody 
else? Everybody else is better off with the more permissive license..

> Now I know that is what you would prefer, but it seems obvious that it
> isn't what the new FSF wants.
> I would be very surprised if new versions of any FSF-control code is
> available under v2 more than a few months after v3 becomes final.

I suspect the FSF might well be _very_ careful here. If they move to "v3 
or later", they had better be damn sure somebody won't license-fork that 
project, or they'll be left with nothing at all.

So I would not be entirely surprised if projects remain "v2 or later" just 
because it's to nobodys advantage to play chicken.

But who knows..

> I don't see the urgency.  Why are you "screwed forever"?  You can
> always take the last version that was available under a suitable
> license and fork from there, just like OpenSSH did.
> 
> Sure: the longer you leave it the harder it will be to get critical
> mass, but I don't see the need for it to be done immediately.

It obviously doesn't have to be, but it gets a lot harder to do later, if 
the project has any appreciable amount of real development.

Of course, a lot of projects probably don't have that much. I haven't 
followed, but I don't get the feeling that bash or fileutils have a huge 
amount of constant changes..

			Linus
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