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"or any later version""or any later version"Posted Feb 4, 2006 1:54 UTC (Sat) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)In reply to: "or any later version" by shane Parent article: GPLv3 and the kernel 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.
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"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 loveto 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,
Hope you don't mind, Jon, and if so, publish it here. I don't care, as long as it is published. I'll
PJ
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