On Sat, 1 Sep 2001, Jakob B. Jensen wrote: > Suppose package X is licensed under "GPL version 1 or later". > > As long as this text remains on the package, each recipient has > the freedom to use it *at his/hers option* under GPL 1, 2 or 3 > (or later). > > Suppose by an act of packaging Debian licenses the packaged (and > usually slightly modified) X.deb as "GPL version 2 or later". > The packager has unnecessarily taken away the freedom of the > user to use the resulting .deb file under GPL version 1, if he > so chooses. [...]
GPL does not refer to use of the .deb binary package, it refers to redistribution of the package as a whole (source and binaries). As long as GPL-1 is still inside the source code, everybody has the right to modify and redistribute the package under "GPL-1 or later". In other words, just because we refer in the copyright file to the latest version of GPL and it happens to be version 2 does not necessarily mean we are relicensing the package to "version 2 or later".