is the GPLv3 "similar in spirit" to the GPLv2?

Posted Oct 5, 2006 14:59 UTC (Thu) by forthy (guest, #1525)
In reply to: is the GPLv3 "similar in spirit" to the GPLv2? by hummassa
Parent article: Why Torvalds is sitting out the GPLv3 process (Linux.com)

Please learn to grep. The term used to declare GPL version 2 or later is fixed, and it spells out as:

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License
as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version
2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

I find a whooping 4631 files with exactly this text in my /usr/src/linux directory. And the GPL v2 explicitely states that you can choose any later license. If the author does not state any version, you can choose whatever version you like (Section 9). Please read the GPL! It's right in /usr/src/linux, just skipp below the comment from Linus. The majority of the Linux kernel does not specify any version (apart from your 124 files), Linus comment is just for himself (he chose to use GPLv2 to redistribute; he's entitled to do that, it doesn't change the state of the original work, since the GPL is very precise that you get all the rights only from the original authors).