Phoronix Test Suite Exploring GPLv2 License

[amehaye]

How about dual-licensing? That way everyone can choose the license that best fits his needs.

[V10lator]

How about dual-licensing? That way everyone can choose the license that best fits his needs.

You mean the default "GPLv2 or later" ? :P
I can't see why companies dislike GPLv3 but like "GPLv2 or later", given that "or later" means v3...

Anyway, we should all make small contributions to PTS now, then disallow a license change...

[mrugiero]

Or patent protection for users under paragraph 11? Say, you used some mechanism of calling or benchmarking - and you, and all your userbase are sued over patent related to this.

You are wrong here. If the patented code was implemented by Michael, there is no protection until the patent holder distributes his code, as there was no agreement on the patent holder side to allow this license.

GPL 3 doesn't realistically prevent that either. If someone is going to obfuscate the code to hide the source it doesn't matter what license they use.

I didn't realize until I read your post, but yeah, it becomes circular: to be (legally) able to decrypt it, you must first prove it's under the GPLv3, and if you'd be able to prove that, you wouldn't need to decrypt it to prove it was under the GPLv2 in the other case, so there's no difference.

You mean the default "GPLv2 or later" ? :P
I can't see why companies dislike GPLv3 but like "GPLv2 or later", given that "or later" means v3...

Anyway, we should all make small contributions to PTS now, then disallow a license change...

I always wondered how that worked, as it's "at your option". Whose option? Distributor? End-user? It makes a difference. If the distributor can choose to only consider it GPLv2 at the moment of distribution, then it's obvious why they accept it, as it means they can choose not to follow the patents and anti-tivoisation clauses. If it's end user's, then any of those distributors are effectively giving me licenses to their patents "at my option".
I don't really see the point on dual licenses, at least if you allow the user to pick between them under the same conditions. Just use the lowest common denominator (in how restrictive they are), as it's how it will effectively work. If I dual license something as BSD/GPLv3, all of those who are negatively affected (from their point of view, that is) will use it as BSD, and the ones who care about free software will contribute back, which would happen nonetheless with BSD only.
A different story would be in the cases of paid licenses, or in the cases where you care, for example, what they do with the software, for example, imagine you have the following ideology: all of the public administration software should remain open, but otherwise you don't care. Then, you could license your code as BSD for non-public administration applications, and GPL for public administration uses. Although this could be said to restrict the use of the software (although in sum you could use it any way you want, it's just with a different license), infringing both licenses.
Point is, dual licensing makes sense only (or maybe almost only, and I'm missing some cases) if you impose different conditions for the licenses to apply.
One exception might be this, GPLv2+, as I'm not sure exactly how it works.

[deanjo]

I didn't realize until I read your post, but yeah, it becomes circular: to be (legally) able to decrypt it, you must first prove it's under the GPLv3, and if you'd be able to prove that, you wouldn't need to decrypt it to prove it was under the GPLv2 in the other case, so there's no difference.

Not only that but it is like saying "Software Piracy will stop if they stop using DRM". People that steal open code and then cover their tracks don't care what the license says. The only thing a license does is place restrictions on people that are honest to begin with.

[V10lator]

I always wondered how that worked, as it's "at your option". Whose option? Distributor? End-user? It makes a difference. If the distributor can choose to only consider it GPLv2 at the moment of distribution, then it's obvious why they accept it, as it means they can choose not to follow the patents and anti-tivoisation clauses. If it's end user's, then any of those distributors are effectively giving me licenses to their patents "at my option".

That's exactly what I'm asking myself all the time, especially as I use gentoo, so basically I'm forking the software I install every time I install it (so the "at your option" has to mean me, no?).

On the other side every end-user can ask for the source and compile for himself, choosing the GPL version "at his option" while doing so, so, well, I'm, confused.

//EDIT: A funny imagination I just had: At a court:
Company A: "In our option we choose GPLv3"
Company B: "But in out option, as original creator of the software we choose v2"
Judge: "In my option I choose v4, which doesn't exist. You all loose!"
:P

[DanL]

Going back to GPL2 is really half-@ssed. If you want your code to be used by corporations and you want to give up the GPL3 clauses that fully protect your freedom, you might as well just go to BSD or MIT license...

[GreatEmerald]

I always wondered how that worked, as it's "at your option". Whose option? Distributor? End-user?

Well, it can't be the distributor, because GPLv2 is a different license than GPLv2+. They can't change the license, they have to deliver it as-is, which means it's still GPLv2+ when the user receives it. Although yea, in case of tivoisation, I can see a problem, it doesn't comply with one license yet it complies with the other one; so if it was up to the users, then all GPLv2+ would mean GPLv3. If it was up to the companies, it would all be GPLv2. Hmm...

I don't really see the point on dual licenses, at least if you allow the user to pick between them under the same conditions. Just use the lowest common denominator (in how restrictive they are), as it's how it will effectively work. If I dual license something as BSD/GPLv3, all of those who are negatively affected (from their point of view, that is) will use it as BSD, and the ones who care about free software will contribute back, which would happen nonetheless with BSD only.

Well yes, but nobody dual-licenses GPL and BSD. They dual-license two different licenses (see the Mozilla license, for example). Or using the CC licenses as an example, it makes no sense to dual-license a work under CC-BY-SA and CC-BY, as the result would be CC-BY; however, it does make sense (if rather odd) to dual-license to CC-BY and CC-SA.

[brosis]

It does not require you to ship CD's, it requires you to have the source available in machine readable form.

It does. If you don't ship source with binary, you must ship CDs on request. And that for every release up to three years long on every 3rd party request.

GPL 3 doesn't realistically prevent that either. If someone is going to obfuscate the code to hide the source it doesn't matter what license they use.

EULA does not realistically prevent against piracy, decryption or reverse. If someone obfuscates the code and basic output is similar to the GPL'ed program, then v3 gives enough ground to force-provide the source code, if this software is publicly distributed.

[GreatEmerald]

That's exactly what I'm asking myself all the time, especially as I use gentoo, so basically I'm forking the software I install every time I install it (so the "at your option" has to mean me, no?).

In case of Gentoo, you don't care about any licenses. GPL only applies to distributors, so as long as you don't do that, you can do whatever. The bindist flag is set like that by default just because otherwise the distributors would be violating the license, but if you unset it yourself, then it's fine because it's for your personal use.

[wizard69]

How about anything but GPL?

BSD would be a smart move, or the UIOS used by the LLVM crew.

GPL 2 was never an especially bad license but GPL 3 goes way overboard with its radicalism. As such the Free software Foundation really needs to be punished for that radical change. The best way to slap the FSF about the head is to avoid. Using any of their license.