* Roberto: > On Mon, Aug 05, 2019 at 11:37:22PM +0200, Florian Weimer wrote: >> In general, I agree. But there might be cases that are less >> clear-cut. For example, if the upgrade from GPLv2+ to GPLv3+ is used >> to gain permission to combine the work with an AGPL work, especially >> if this is done in an “open core” context. Or if the author clearly >> intended that uploading the original (GPLv2+) work to someone else's >> computer was distribution under the GPLv2 terms, and the GPLv3 upgrade >> is used primarily to circumvent that. > > I don't understand that. If the author provides written permission to > upgrade to a later version but he don't really want people to do that, > it looks to me like lying. He should either clarify the cases where the > upgrade is not wanted, or avoid writing those permissions at all.
The alternative explanation is that the FSF did something unexpected, from the author's point of view. >> I also think that in general, Debian should try to respect copyright >> holders' wishes, even if the project is not required to do so. >> Disregarding authors rarely leads to good outcomes. > > I would want to be respectful, of course, but how can I respect > copyright holders' wishes when they say something and want something > different instead? Many authors provide conflicting license statements. It's not unusual. In the extreme case, it makes the software undistributable and unsuitable for Debian. > If those unwritten exceptions are common, I've probably violated > authors' whises a lot of times already :( I was mainly talking about written clarifications, not unvoiced thoughts of the authors.