Better the FSF than the rest of the industry [LWN.net]

Better the FSF than the rest of the industry

Posted Mar 23, 2006 12:41 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433)
In reply to: Better the FSF than the rest of the industry by Max.Hyre
Parent article: No GPLv2-only projects on Savannah

Actually, the FSF is legally obliged to keep your code free...

Well, that might not QUITE be true, but the comment about "or any other conditions that the FSF make up as they go!" is completely off the wall - may I refer you to the GPL v2 for confirmation?

If you read the GPL, you will notice that it says - AS PART OF THE GPL ITSELF - that any revisions will comply with spirit of the current version. So if I release my code under "GPL v2 or later", and then the FSF releases (in twenty years time?) GPL v5 that does *not* comply with the spirit of free software, then I can simply say (with reason) why I consider that v5 is not a true successor to v2. At this point, I now stand a very good chance of going to law and having v5 struck down as a valid licence for my work. Just because it's called the GPL, doesn't mean it's a valid successor. It's got to comply with the explicit promise in v2 for that to be true.

Cheers,
Wol

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Better the FSF than the rest of the industry

Posted Mar 23, 2006 23:19 UTC (Thu) by sepreece (subscriber, #19270) [Link]

Umm, the GPL i a license that an author might choose to use to control distribution of her code. While the FSF controlled the writing of that license, I don't think there's any legal sense in which the "similar in spirit" clause actually constrains the FSF or future versions of the GPL. Nor is there any way an author can "retract" the "or later version" language once the code has been distributed under that license - anybody receiving a version under a license containing the "or any later version" language is free to choose any such version, whether it's in the same spirit or not. IANAL, but I'm pretty sure that once you've set the license terms, you're stuck with them (though you could, of course, use different license language for a later version - as the author, you can specify the terms you like each time you distribute the code.