GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, probably not [LWN.net]

GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, probably not

Posted Oct 2, 2006 6:40 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421)
In reply to: GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, probably not by dlang
Parent article: Busy busy busybox

unfortunantly, for many people these actions are prooving their worst fears about the 'or later' clause to be true

These are their "worst fears?" *Yawn, hyperbole alert.* If they used "v2 or later" and the developers don't like the final version of GPLv3, they can always stick with v2's terms. Yes, hypothetically people could fork a v3 version of your code, but FUD about forking of FLOSS projects has almost always been proven false, regardless of license (whether GPL or BSD or LGPL), and the few exceptional cases (e.g. X11) were usually for good reason and ended up being applauded by the community. If the main developers of a project agree with one another, then no fork will survive; and if the main developers have basic philosophical differences then the project has problems regardless of license.

And anyway, forking of v2-only and v3-only projects could happen regardless of whether the changes in v3 were big or small, and regardless of whether you agree with them. There's nothing the FSF could have done to prevent this, except for not updating the GPL at all. (Except in a fantasy world where every developer on the planet likes v3 better than v2, which would never happen regardless of what v3 changed.)

In any case, considering that the FSF's changes are totally in line with what they have always said the goals of the GPL are (ensuring the user's right to modify, run, and redistribute the programs they receive), saying it's not "in the same spirit" seems tenuous. If you lose trust in the FSF because they stick to their stated ideals in the face of technical countermeasures (DRM and patents), then you haven't been paying attention for the past 20 years.

(I can easily come up with much worse fears. e.g. that GPLv3 == X11, which would open up all past "v2 or later" code to closed-source exploitation. This would be a true abandonment of the spirit of the license.)

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GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, yes

Posted Oct 2, 2006 8:26 UTC (Mon) by mingo (subscriber, #31122) [Link]

unfortunantly, for many people these actions are prooving their worst fears about the 'or later' clause to be true

These are their "worst fears?"

You are materially misrepresenting what was said. He said: "their worst fears about the 'or later' clause".

*Yawn, hyperbole alert.* If they used "v2 or later" and the developers don't like the final version of GPLv3, they can always stick with v2's terms.

You are now compounding your misrepresentation of what was said with a false ridicule of their fears over the 'or later' clause.

Who are you to ridicule them over what they (which category, btw., includes me) genuinely believe? May i ask you what kind of free software projects you have participated in so far, and what the level of your participation was?

(In my judgement, if this attitude and social skills of yours isnt just an unfortunate one-time deviation in the heat of the moment but common practice then you could not have gotten very far into contributing to free software - but please by all means surprise me with facts to the contrary.)

GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, yes

Posted Oct 2, 2006 11:45 UTC (Mon) by walken (subscriber, #7089) [Link]

>> *Yawn, hyperbole alert.* If they used "v2 or later" and the developers don't like the final version of GPLv3, they can always stick with v2's terms.

> You are now compounding your misrepresentation of what was said with a false ridicule of their fears over the 'or later' clause.

It would help if you could clarify, in a concrete way, what these fears are.

Say you contributed code under "GPLv2 or later". now GPLv3 comes out and adds additional restrictions to v2 (the no-tivoisation clauses). tivo can stil use that code you wrote under the v2 terms. no immediate harm done as far as I can see (it'd be different if v3 was relaxing restrictions instead, though).

Later on someone might write a v3-only change, which would be an issue if you want to use his change, and he cares strongly about excluding v2, and you care strongly about allowing it. I suppose that would be too bad, but this is hardly RMS's fault if you can't agree on licensing terms with that future contributor.

Can you clarify what your fears are about GPLv3 ?

> (In my judgement, if this attitude and social skills of yours isnt just an unfortunate one-time deviation in the heat of the moment but common practice then you could not have gotten very far into contributing to free software - but please by all means surprise me with facts to the contrary.)

Aaaaw come on now, as if we don't know of any kernel devs with bad social skills... :)

Ad hominem

Posted Oct 2, 2006 16:22 UTC (Mon) by GreyWizard (guest, #1026) [Link]

You seem to be suggesting that challenging what some people believe is wrong regardless of the merits of that belief -- in other words that opposition to GPLv3 is some kind of religion that needs to be respected outside the boundaries of reason and argument. Dismissing an argument based on the credentials and social skills of the author without regard for the merits of the argument is an elementary logical fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem

I suggest you work on your own social skills before policing those of others.

GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, yes

Posted Oct 2, 2006 16:38 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

He said: "their worst fears about the 'or later' clause".

Yup. And this is hyperbole...one can come up with much worse fears, as I pointed out at the end of my message; you're the one who is misreading what I wrote. If your "worst fear" about "or later version" permissions is that the FSF will add restrictions (regarding DRM or patents) you don't like, then your doomsday scenario is pretty tame—you can always stick with v2. The FSF cannot force you to add restrictions you do not want.

PS. I'm not going to take the bait and get into an ad hominem pissing contest with you. Please try to stick to rational arguments.

GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, yes

Posted Oct 2, 2006 17:17 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

Lest you misunderstand me again, by "one can come up with much worse fears" I meant "one can come up with much worse fears in this context".

In case you haven't noticed, throughout this entire thread I've focused exclusively on the context of the "or any later version" permission. I believe this is clear if you read each posting in its entirety, as opposed to snipping out isolated phrases. (You're acting like I said, "Well, nuclear war is a much worse fear," when I said no such thing, and if you read what I wrote this is clearly not what I meant.)

Ingo, native English speakers rely on context and good-faith readers/listeners in order to make themselves understood. Only lawyers have to be careful to precisely turn every phrase to avoid any possible ambiguity, because lawyers have to prepare for people who deal in bad faith. Please don't make people who deal with you write like lawyers.

GPL "v2 or later" may prevent merging back modifications? in practice, yes

Posted Oct 2, 2006 17:41 UTC (Mon) by bronson (subscriber, #4806) [Link]

You said, Only lawyers have to be careful to precisely turn every phrase to avoid any possible ambiguity...

And yet you yourself have spent much of your time nit-picking Ingo's language and have mostly ignored his very clear intent.

Bull

Posted Oct 2, 2006 18:19 UTC (Mon) by stevenj (guest, #421) [Link]

And yet you yourself have spent much of your time nit-picking Ingo's language

Bull. All through this thread I've tried to stay on-topic regarding whether using "v2 or later" permission opens you up to some vague and terrible legal risks, and whether the FSF is fulfilling these fears with GPLv3 (separate from whether you agree with v3's changes).

Ingo posted exactly once in this thread (so far), and his points were (a) misreading my post to claim that I was not taking the phrase "worst fears" in the context of this permission, (b) making unfounded and irrelevant ad hominem attacks.

And I note that your post made not a single substantive point about the license language. Why are people so intent on changing the subject?