GPL versions not such a big deal [LWN.net]

GPL versions not such a big deal

Posted Mar 26, 2008 0:33 UTC (Wed) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510)
In reply to: GPL versions not such a big deal by raboofje
Parent article: Bruce Perens and the OSI board

Wouldn't that render my work incompatible with any code under the unmodified GPLv3?

No. You are welcome to give people more rights. It's just taking them away that is a problem. But you do not have the right to force the copyright holders of any other GPLv3 software to give away more rights too. So, if you have made a contribution to a larger work, the fact that you give away more rights to your part of that work may not be very useful to others.

You might be able to operate a project where waiving that particular right is the rule for the whole project. You could simply refuse to accept any code that didn't have that right waived. Of course, people could make a fork if they didn't like that.

Bruce

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GPL versions not such a big deal

Posted Mar 27, 2008 1:47 UTC (Thu) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]

it just means that someone can take your code and combine it with GPLv3 code and remove the
permission that you granted.

if you just use GPLv2 (without or later) your code cannot be (ab)used this way.

believe it or not Bruce, many people aren't happy with others taking their code and putting
more restrictive licenses on the resulting work and will pick a license that doesn't allow
that

GPL versions not such a big deal

Posted Mar 27, 2008 2:01 UTC (Thu) by BrucePerens (subscriber, #2510) [Link]

believe it or not Bruce, many people aren't happy with others taking their code and putting more restrictive licenses on the resulting work

I understand. It's my honest opinion that whatever is chosen, somebody would be unhappy with the choice. In this case I think that more people are going to be willing to put up with the tivo stuff in order to have a license that went through that high a degree of legal review.

Thanks

Bruce

GPL versions not such a big deal

Posted Mar 27, 2008 12:52 UTC (Thu) by hummassa (subscriber, #307) [Link]

> it just means that someone can take your code and combine it with GPLv3 code and
> remove the permission that you granted.
In the combined work, yes, but in your code, no. You granted the permission to tivoize 
your code, your permission is there, latent. If I take _your_ code and put in my TiVoSX, but 
not the code that the other author does not want tivoized, it's ok. That is the beauty of the 
GPLv3+waivers:

Your code: GPLv3 + waiver tivoizing
My code: GPLv3
Combined code: GPLv3

If anyone wants to tivoize your code, _nothing_ will stop them. Your wishes regarding 
_your_ code are _always_ respected. Now, your wishes regarding _my_ code...