Quoting Branden Robinson ([EMAIL PROTECTED]): > On Thu, Aug 28, 2003 at 02:44:57AM +0100, Scott James Remnant wrote: > > Ya know, I was always sure that "or (at your option) any later version" > > header people blindly add to their source would turn out to be a Bad > > Thing. > > > > Imagine... GPLv3 with Invariant Sections... Microsoft take Linux and add > > a bunch of code to it, maybe something really handy like the ability to > > run Win32 apps natively. > > Won't happen with "Linux" -- please review the license applied to the > Linux kernel. It's missing a certain phrase.
"...or (at your [the recipient's] option) any later version." The fact that "your" refers to the _recipient_ means that Scott's worst-case scenario of FSF issuing a screwball GPLv3 is not a serious concern _even_ for work whose licence grants include the quoted phrase. For example, consider the effect of an invariant-sections GPLv3 on Samba, whose GPLv2 licence grant includes the quoted phrase. Recipients of extant Samba versions would then have the _option_ of accepting Samba instances under silly licence terms -- or GPLv2 ones. Forks could be launched under the silly terms, but who'd want to? And the next official Samba release after that would probably omit the option phrase -- while not accepting contributions under those other terms. The same analysis applies to all other codebases that use the option phrase. And that, in turn, provides FSF a strong incentive not to fool too dramatically or hastily with GPL direction. (Indeed, they've been very cautious.) (See also: Affero Licence, http://www.affero.org/oagf.html ) -- Cheers, kill -9 them all. Rick Moen Let init sort it out. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
