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  • #41
    Originally posted by Delgarde View Post
    Not true. The "or later" clause is removed, because really, that's a pretty dangerous thing to have in a legal document. It requires you to trust that the FSF will *never* release a future version of the GPL that includes conditions you're not willing to accept. Plenty of people seem to be happy with that, but it's hardly surprising that not everyone does.
    You can still use it under GPLv2, as it says '_or_ later', it can also be dangerous to assume that there won't be some unforseen problems with a licence which can't be fixed in later revisions due to the removal of 'or later'.

    That said, Linus (and the rest of the kernel devs apparently) seem very happy with this choice of license and I haven't seen him second-guess himself at any time (again, quite the opposite) which given that Linux has been around for ~20 years it likely means GPLv2 a perfect fit for this project, else the 'warts' would have appeared by now.

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    • #42
      Originally posted by blackiwid View Post
      I am not so shure about that, I am no laywer but here in germany 3rd people can sue people for copyright stuff.
      Do you have any example of a 3rd party suing over someone elses copyright being infringed against that infringed copyright owner's will? That sounds totally outlandish to me?

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      • #43
        The danger, when violating a license, is not whether the current copyright owner currently does not mind you violating his license's terms. The danger is what will happen if the current owner decides to sell the rights to someone else, or decides to change his business strategy.

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        • #44
          Originally posted by XorEaxEax View Post
          You can still use it under GPLv2, as it says '_or_ later'
          Sure - but my concern wasn't that I can't keep using v2, it's that by leaving the "or later" in there, people will in future gain the ability to use the code under GPLv4 or v5, under conditions not foreseen when the code was written under v2+, and which I might not approve of. Hence, removing that condition.

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          • #45
            Originally posted by XorEaxEax View Post
            You can still use it under GPLv2, as it says '_or_ later'
            To be fair it says "or (at your option) any later version." - the "at your option" is important, cause that doesn't mean you as copyright holder, it means 3rd parties (the one reading the license text).

            Now look at this (extremely unlikely) scenario:
            1) Microsoft overtakes the FSF.
            2) Microsoft brings out GPLv4, which is just this text: "All codes belong to the Microsoft corp.".
            3) They download your GPLv2 source codes and decide to let GPLv4 apply cause, in their option, it's better than v2.

            //EDIT: On the other side if some hole in the GPLv2 gets found and you want the new GPLv4 to apply cause it fixes that hole, who would win in court? You that chooses the option of GPLv4 or some evil company that chooses the option of GPLv2 (cause they simply don't want a later version) to exploit that hole?
            Last edited by V10lator; 11 April 2013, 10:35 PM.

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            • #46
              Originally posted by TAXI View Post
              To be fair it says "or (at your option) any later version." - the "at your option" is important, cause that doesn't mean you as copyright holder, it means 3rd parties (the one reading the license text).

              Now look at this (extremely unlikely) scenario:
              1) Microsoft overtakes the FSF.
              2) Microsoft brings out GPLv4, which is just this text: "All codes belong to the Microsoft corp.".
              3) They download your GPLv2 source codes and decide to let GPLv4 apply cause, in their option, it's better than v2.
              There is a condition on what can be deemed a later version: It must not violate the spirit of the license:

              Originally posted by GPLv2/3
              The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
              With this, (2) is not (easily) possible: They might call their new License GPLv4, but that would not make it a later version of GPLv3, because it would not be similar in spirit.

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              • #47
                Originally posted by droidhacker View Post
                It has just now become completely clear that the zealots at the FSF need to get laid. BADLY.

                The clause:


                In other words, use at your own risk, fuck you.

                Quite frankly, I wouldn't change this license at all. There is no reason to. In fact, what I would do... is fork the GPL, and modify it to ALLOW this.
                It is odd, there was this sudden influx of morons that I had to killfile for my blood pressure a while back, not sure why. But since it drove me to find that there is a killfile, I seem to be finding plenty of others to plonk.

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                • #48
                  Originally posted by ArneBab View Post
                  There is a condition on what can be deemed a later version: It must not violate the spirit of the license:

                  With this, (2) is not (easily) possible: They might call their new License GPLv4, but that would not make it a later version of GPLv3, because it would not be similar in spirit.
                  I don't think this has any legal meaning.

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                  • #49
                    Originally posted by TAXI View Post
                    Now look at this (extremely unlikely) scenario:
                    1) Microsoft overtakes the FSF.
                    2) Microsoft brings out GPLv4, which is just this text: "All codes belong to the Microsoft corp.".
                    3) They download your GPLv2 source codes and decide to let GPLv4 apply cause, in their option, it's better than v2.
                    That doesn't harm anyone, it simply benefits Microsoft.

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                    • #50
                      Originally posted by TAXI View Post
                      To be fair it says "or (at your option) any later version." - the "at your option" is important, cause that doesn't mean you as copyright holder, it means 3rd parties (the one reading the license text).

                      Now look at this (extremely unlikely) scenario:
                      1) Microsoft overtakes the FSF.
                      2) Microsoft brings out GPLv4, which is just this text: "All codes belong to the Microsoft corp.".
                      3) They download your GPLv2 source codes and decide to let GPLv4 apply cause, in their option, it's better than v2.

                      //EDIT: On the other side if some hole in the GPLv2 gets found and you want the new GPLv4 to apply cause it fixes that hole, who would win in court? You that chooses the option of GPLv4 or some evil company that chooses the option of GPLv2 (cause they simply don't want a later version) to exploit that hole?
                      Just because Microsoft decides to apply the terms of this new hypothetical GPLv4 to the code doesn't mean that the terms of the GPLv2 under which the code was previously licensed will suddenly become void. That's the whole point of open source, and it's how projects that switched to more closed and restrictive licenses were forked.

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