"or any later version" [LWN.net]

"or any later version"

Posted Feb 3, 2006 11:00 UTC (Fri) by shane (subscriber, #3335)
Parent article: GPLv3 and the kernel

I occasionally wonder about the "or any later version" clause.

IANAL, but I thought that you could not agree to something that you had
not yet seen. For instance, when you start a job and you are asked to sign
a paper saying that you agree to abide by a human resources policy that
you have not been given.

This clause strikes me as similar. GPLv4 could read, "the code may be
hidden and sold for profit by companies building land mines who have given
more than $10000 to Nigerian banks". (Okay, not very likely.) But the idea
that you are agreeing to some future, unknown license seems like it would
add confusion if at some point the copyright holder did NOT agree to the
future license.

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"or any later version"

Posted Feb 4, 2006 1:54 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link]

Yeah, for a contract that's true. I'm a contract lawyer. When you agree to abide by a document you haven't seen, you aren't normally held to that (but if you see it soon after and don't object, and it's a customary sequence of events, you become bound -- that's why shrink wrap agreements work).

But there's no contract here. This is a unidirectional license binding only on the licensor, and the rules are probably different.

And it's not like licensees can lose anything. If I get Linux under GPL2 today with a "or any later version" clause, and FSF produces GPL3 next year, it doesn't take anything away from me -- it just means I have one more option if I want to redistribute my copy. The person it hurts is the copyright owner who now has a little less control over his code because I have more options.

A contract can refer to future events that are uncertain, even if they are under the control of some uninterested third party. Like when the interest rate on a loan is based on some number published in the Wall Street Journal each month. So one could probably say "whatever the FSF thinks is a fair license" and still be enforceable.

"or any later version"

Posted Feb 7, 2006 22:36 UTC (Tue) by pjgrok (guest, #17472) [Link]

If you'd like to write about this subject for Groklaw, would you please contact me? I would love
to have an explantion developers can understand why this language isn't to be feared. It was, I
understand, such fear that caused Linus to avoid the wording in the first place, and look at all the
issues that resulted from that.

You're a contract lawyer, so you understand what the wording means, and how little it means,
but to developers it can look spooky, and it is my belief that it matters that developers and
lawyers figure out how to communicate better to avoid unncecessary issues.

Hope you don't mind, Jon, and if so, publish it here. I don't care, as long as it is published. I'll
gladly link to it instead. Either way is fine with me.