GCC drops its copyright-assignment requirement

Actually, it's very simple ...

> I think you (and others) are right when saying this is not automatically done, because you are given the option to choose between GPLv3 or any later version. But "any later version" is not a license on itself, and you have to actually choose a real license.

Notice that NONE of the different GPLs themselves contain the wording "any later version". The accompanying blurb suggests you use that wording - but that goes into the GRANT of licence, the COPYING file.

> But the FSF has this special power of creating a new license. So if GPLv4 was created, and it contained a provision such as (imprecise wording follows, but you get the point):

> "If you received this work under a 'GPLv3 or later' clause, you may redistribute this work under a 'GPLv4 or later clause'"

The GPL1, GPL2, LGPL2.1, and GPL3 don't contain this wording, so I would be extremely surprised if GPL4 contained it. And it would be extremely divisive, because it would forbid GPLvX-only, like Linux is GPL2-only.

But ANYBODY could easily convert "GPL3+" to "GPL4+". You're reducing the list of available licences to a subset of the original, and all you need to do that is to make a copyrightable change to GCC, which gives you the right to change the COPYING file, and you can then change GPL3+ to GPL4+ there. Or you could change it to 3-only, or 4-only, or whatever you like so long as it's a subset of the original.

But if you do that, don't expect upstream to accept your changes unless they agree with it.

And a word of warning - if you try and slip such a change in un-noticed, either (a) your changes will be stripped out of upstream, or even worse (for you), (b) it's quite possible that upstream could go to a Judge and say "you tricked us into accepting it but it's against our licence policies, please will you relicence it to our standard"! If someone pulled that stunt on me, I'd certainly be prepared to try that if I could afford it!

Cheers,
Wol

B is granted software under the GPL2 “or later”. That authorizes B to avail himself of “or any later version” of the GPL, and each of those versions separately authorizes him to emit new licenses.

That means it is B’s choice to avail himself of all or just some versions of the GPL or later range.

If B does not avail himself of at least one version in the range he has no permission to use and distribute the software → B goes to jail.

If B avails himself of some specific GPL versions only, he can only emit those specific versions to others (B is not the copyright holder who can emit any license he wants unconditionally).

IMHO, there is a legal hole in the current GPL, when stating

> Each time you convey a covered work, the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensors, to run, modify and propagate that work, subject to this License

It should state either that the recipient can also avail himself of future GPL versions if you were given this possibility, or at least allow you to pass this possibility if you were given it.

So right now passing GPL “or later” to others requires you to comply with the conditions of all the GPL versions in the “or later” range, and it is dubious if you’re allowed to pass versions not written yet to others.

The root problem is that a license is a set of benefits and obligations. The FSF could not mandate the use of the most recent GPL (first, some people disagreed with the GPLv3, and second, the most recent GPL today, is not the most recent GPL tomorrow, and it would be quite illegal to mandate today obligations not defined yet).

Therefore, it had to make the use of a “later” version an optional benefit (the law allows offering benefits not defined yet).

However, it seems to me all the focus on keeping or later optional prevented ironing out or later propagation. Not a problems with a understanding judge but all judges are not understanding.

Anyway, you want licensing to be regular and symmetric, and repeatable. But licensing does not work that way. Licensing was invented by broken kings to finance their armies and palaces. It was very clear for those kings they did not want to make others kings in their stead, that any permission (license) they gave was very transient and would extinguish itself fast, forcing beneficiaries to beg for new licenses after a while (financing new armies and palaces).

The legal licensing framework is designed to be asymmetric, transient and non repeatable. The GPL has to work very hard against it to achieve its objectives.

That actually works, if you see GPL2+ as a set of licenses. Thus A handed out licenses GPL2, GPL3, GPL4, ... all at the same time.

> Plus, of course, if B gives an UNmodified copy to C, then C is in possession of the COPYING file that contains proof of A's original grant of GPL2+! So you're saying that > C only has a GPL4 licence, despite being in possession of a (valid) document that tells him he has a GPL2+ licence?

Let's just assume for a moment that B distributes an unmodified copy of the source together with a modified copy of the COPYING file that reflects that B distributes using GPL4 (and not GPL2+). If B really wants to restrict to GPL4 this would be the only sensible thing to do. And I hope we at least agree that the COPYING file is not part of the program's source code, even if it lives in the same folder. Whether this is legal has to be determined by the lincese terms of GPL4 (which we unfortunately do not know at the moment). So let us have a look at the text of GPL3 instead. And actually this example should work for switching from GPL2+ to GPL3 as well.

I already cited the relevant part elsewhere in the thread:
> You may convey verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice; keep intact all notices stating that this License and any non-permissive terms added in accord with section 7 apply to the code; keep intact all notices of the absence of any warranty; and give all recipients a copy of this License along with the Program.

So we should keep intact notices that say that this license (GPL3) applies to the code. I would say B complies with this phrase when distributing with a modified COPYING file that states GPL3.

> So when the GPL (any version) tells you to pass the licence on, they are telling you to pass the COPYING file on ...?

The GPL (version N) nowhere says to pass the license (or all the licenses) the program was received under on. It only says to keep all notices that GPL version N applies to the code. The phrase "this license" in section 4 of GPL3 refers to GPL3, not anything else. If you remove notices referring to other licenses (or other versions of the GPL which are in fact other licenses), this is no violation of the terms of GPL version N. And only those terms matter if you distribute exclusively under the terms of GPL version N.

> Of course, this still doesn't address farnz's concerns that two versions of GPL might require passing on different items, so it is - in practice - impossible for someone receiving under one version to pass on under a different version.

If you just see it as a set of licenses, this is not a problem. If it is not possible to distribute under the intersection of the terms of all versions, you can only distribute under some subset that has no conflict.

And of course this is all very theoretical. If C redistributes under GPL2+ who would sue? B cannot, because B does not have copyright. And A will not, as A intended the source to be distributed under GPL2+.