hey cool, an actual ON TOPIC thread on linux-il, I'm so excited :) Quoting Alon Altman, from the post of Tue, 24 Dec: > On Tue, 24 Dec 2002, Ira Abramov wrote: > > > 2. What if someday the people controlling FSF release Version 5 of the > > > GPL, which says that they (FSF) alone are allowed the rights; and other > > > people have to pay royalties (e.g. "to pay for court costs incurred by > > > the need to defend GPL"). > > > > then any software released under "GPL 5 only" should not be trusted. all > > software already released as "GPL2 or later" is just that. you choose, > > when you download the tarball, if you are recieving it under the terms > > of GPL 2, 3, 4 or 5 (I chose 2 for now :) and the new evil GPL doesn't > > bother you. > > They can't limit rights already granted in "version 5", but they actually > CAN add a clause that allows additional rights (like the right to change and > use it in closed-source modules) to those who pay them royalties. You can > look at what TrollTech is doing as an example.
if they own the copyright, they can do whatever the fsck they want with new versions, like release it under two licenses (which is basicly what "GPL2 or later" means). if GPL5 says you can withhold your patches and redist if gratis it's a really interesting question though. it violates the spirit of the old GPL as well as takes away freedoms. this absurd situation is possible in theory if the FSF Amuta rules lets anyone to overthrow and kick out the current heads of it. humm. scary thought. stop that! -- All in favor say, "Awwight" Ira Abramov http://ira.abramov.org/email/ This post is encrypted twice with ROT-13. Documenting or attempting to crack this encryption is illegal.
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