Date: Mon, 15 May 2000 21:26:05 +0530 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com> Cc: Neil Blakey-Milner <nbm@mithrandr.moria.org>, chat@freebsd.org Subject: Re: RE: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? Message-ID: <20000515212605.C16481@physics.iisc.ernet.in> In-Reply-To: <20000515131558.61220@techunix.technion.ac.il>; from mellon@pobox.com on Mon, May 15, 2000 at 01:15:58PM %2B0300 References: <20000514093934.10200@techunix.technion.ac.il> <001801bfbe09$ced4d120$021d85d1@youwant.to> <20000515100959.57288@techunix.technion.ac.il> <20000515125628.A48320@physics.iisc.ernet.in> <20000515112415.A28842@mithrandr.moria.org> <20000515131558.61220@techunix.technion.ac.il>
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> > It seems pretty obvious that the mutt COPYING file does indeed say that > > you can use GPL version 2, or later, at your discretion. In fact, I > > don't think I've ever seen a COPYING file that doesn't have the 'or > > later'. > > > > Where was the misinformation? > > It was stated that you, the author, didn't have a choice, and could > not use the GPL (without modifying it) and avoid allowing your users to > choose a later version. > > That statement was not true. It is true, however, that most authors choose to include the "later version" line. That's in case of possible legal problems with the GPLv2 which may be fixed in v3. The point is, it is *their* choice, not Stallman's. If I wanted to distribute some software under only the GPL v2, I can, but if some day a hole is poked in the GPL in court and a GPL3 exists by that time, I probably won't get much help from the FSF. Besides, there are numerous examples of copyright holders to the code changing their licensing scheme from GPL to something else. It is simply not true that Stallman controls your code for life. But someone who has already received it under the GPL is permitted to continue redistributing/developing that version under the GPL, and they cannot change the license to something else, not being the copyright holders. R. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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