> I still haven't seen definitive written statement from anybody > of _how_ you do that (move from GPLv2 and later to GPLv3) if a project > has hundreds of copyright holders. If somebody has a link, then please > share. I'm not convinced that anybody can just declare a wholesale move > to GPLv3 even with the "and later" clause. That's why I would love to > see something definitive from the FSF (maybe it's in the FAQ already and > I've overlooked it).
IANAL, but having been through this many times in the past... If a Work has N authors that "collectively" own the copyright, it requires all N authors to agree to change the copyright for the covered Work (future work by a subset requires only that subset's agreement). This would be troublesome in PCB, for example, because some of the parts were written by C Scott Ananian, Harry Eaton, Klamer Schutte, Thomas Nau, Alexey Nikitin, Michael Leonov, DJ Delorie, Dan McMahill... This is why projects like GNU always require a copyright assignment or disclaimer. It keeps the number of owners at one, simplifying copyright issues. This is how the FSF can easily change projects from GPL2 to GPL3. The "or later" clause allows a recipient to ACT under the terms of a newer license to a Work covered by an older license. It does NOT allow the recipient to CHANGE the license itself. Further recipients of that Work apply the terms of the original license. Example, here is the license for gcc.c: "GCC is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version." Any recipient is bound by that wording, no matter what choices intermediate distributors chose for themselves. _______________________________________________ geda-dev mailing list [email protected] http://www.seul.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/geda-dev
