Date: Tue, 16 May 2000 04:45:12 +0530 From: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> To: David Schwartz <davids@webmaster.com> Cc: Anatoly Vorobey <mellon@pobox.com>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RE: Why are people against GNU? WAS Re: 5.0 already? Message-ID: <20000516044511.B8613@physics.iisc.ernet.in> In-Reply-To: <002301bfbec0$ec53b3d0$021d85d1@youwant.to>; from davids@webmaster.com on Mon, May 15, 2000 at 03:57:19PM -0700 References: <20000515100959.57288@techunix.technion.ac.il> <002301bfbec0$ec53b3d0$021d85d1@youwant.to>
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> Your response has nothing whatsoever to do with what I said. Please read it
> again.
>
> If I write a work and place it under the GPL, and it is later modified and
> extended, a new version of the GPL being issued would change the licensing
> terms for the work as a whole. Not even the original author can do that. And
> believe me, Stallman would throw a fit if I prefaced the GPL with:
>
> "This program is free software. You can distribute and/or modify it under
> the terms of the GPL; however, you implicitly agree that any code you
> contribute to it may also be released under any other license that the
> original software is released under."
>
> This is the power that the GPL reserves ONLY for itself.
The license of the program tells you under what terms you may
distribute it. A GPL'd program tells you you may distribute under
some specific version of the GPL. To quote the GPL itself,
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new
versions of the 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.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the
Program specifies a version number of this License which applies
to it and "any later version", you have the option of following
the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later
version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the
Program does not specify a version number of this License, you
may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation.
What it does not say is what you may do if the Program specifies
a version number of this License and "no other version", or even
a version number of the license without further qualification.
I think the omission is either deliberate, because he didn't want
to encourage it, or unintentional, but there is no ambiguity
legally. If you specify that the GPL version 2, and only that
version, applies to the program, that's the end of the matter.
Nothing RMS says can change that. And nothing in the GPL itself
says you cannot make such a requirement. It is true that most
free software I have seen say "or any later version", but I think
that's simply to save themselves possible legal problems if
there's a loophole with GPLv2 and the FSF fixes it in v3.
Rahul.
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