Excerpts from Ronald van Haren's message of 2010-08-23 12:36:52 +0200: > On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:21 PM, Philipp Überbacher > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Excerpts from Ronald van Haren's message of 2010-08-23 12:06:24 +0200: > >> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:03 PM, Philipp <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > Hi, > >> > I just looked up the GPL notation again. > >> > Here's the relevant excerpt from the wiki: > >> > > >> > http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Arch_Packaging_Standards > >> > > >> > .. > >> > The (L)GPL has many versions and permutations of those versions. > >> > For (L)GPL software, the convention is: > >> > > >> > * (L)GPL - (L)GPLv2 or any later version > >> > * (L)GPL2 - (L)GPL2 only > >> > * (L)GPL3 - (L)GPL3 or any later version > >> > > >> > > >> > Now besides that this is obviously confusing there's another problem. > >> > How would you specify that a program is GPL3 only? > >> > > >> > >> Since when is GPL4 released? > >> > >> Ronald > > > > It isn't afaik, but that doesn't matter. > > Both the GPL2 and GPL3 text contain something along the lines of: > > ", or (at your option) any later version." > > > > You have to remove that to say it's GPL2 or GPL3 only. > > > > Just because GPL4/5/6/.. doesn't exist yet it doesn't mean you can't > > say that your program can't be redistributed using those licenses. > > > > I'm a bit conservative in this case, I rather wait until a license > > exists before I say that my program can be distributed using said > > license, hence my program is GPL3 only. > > -- > > Well obviously, but GPL4 can be as far as 10 years away, if it will be > released at all. Until that time gpl3 or later is equal to gpl3 as > there is nothing later. I presume if gpl4 will be released a similar > transition can be made like was done after gpl3 was released. Most > likely gpl3 will become gpl3 only and... well we can discuss that when > the time is there.
Well, yes, for Arch it makes no difference at this time, for my program it does make a difference, so yeah, it's a correctness thing. > It doesn't make much sense to do this now, it should have been done > when we introduced this scheme (maybe it even was, I don't recall) and > now we should just wait for when it needs fixing. > You can always file a bug if a package is distributed under the wrong license. > > Ronald Yep, it very much looks like the 'or later' wasn't considered when the scheme was introduced, else it would have been GPL2 and GPL2+ or something right from the start, not the confusing mess it is now. -- Philipp -- "Wir stehen selbst enttäuscht und sehn betroffen / Den Vorhang zu und alle Fragen offen." Bertolt Brecht, Der gute Mensch von Sezuan
