What is the effective difference between releasing "under the terms of
the GPLv2 or (at your option) any later version" and releasing it
under GPLv3? Is it just this DRM business? Do we only care about that
on principle (i.e. we disagree with the FSF on this one) or is there
something in SAGE that we specifically do not want these restrictions
placed on for particular reasons?
Or is it specifically excluded to distribute software derived from
that with GPLv2 under GPLv3. But that would imply that GPLv3 does
grant the user additional rights that v2 does not, i.e. it would be a
*less* restrictive license at some point.
My concern is, what happens if they release GPLv4 and they put some
nuisance clause in that we specifically don't like, such as, you may
use this software to further the aims of the FSF in total world
domination and anihilation of its arch rival {insert name of favourite
evil empire here}, even at the expense of keeping your derived
propriety source code secret if that helps. Sure, the FSF is highly
unlikely to add something like that, but how can you license a product
against all future versions without knowing what additional rights
those versions of the license may grant the user!?
My suspicion is the FSF have done this to encourage the use of their
new license. Nothing more, nothing less. They are just strategising to
advance their own cause, leveraging their existing power.
Bill.
On 23 Sep, 21:08, Jaap Spies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> William Stein wrote:
>
> > I think GMP is not going to change to LGPLv2 or greater; switching
> > from LGPLv2 or greater to LGPLv3 is the one and only new "big feature"
> > of GMP 4.2.2 (see the release notes).
>
> > Also -- much more importantly, the copyright owners of GMP
> > are the Free Software Foundation -- not "the GMP developers",
> > and their agenda is very clear.
>
> See:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
> Do I smell something?
>
>
>
> > Just out of curiosity, would anybody be angry if I were to remove the
> > words "*Version 2*" from the above sentence in the COPYING file?
> > Evidently nobody (but me) has ever actually submitted any code to Sage where
> > they explicitly put "Version 2" in their copyright statement.
> > I'm asking this mainly to see what our options are.
>
> I join David Joyner: GPLv2 or later
> This will resolve all issues for library usage.
>
> Jaap
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