[arch-dev-public] GPL2 -> GPL3 license changes in packages

Roman Kyrylych roman.kyrylych at gmail.com
Thu Nov 8 10:34:23 EST 2007


2007/11/8, Damir Perisa <damir.perisa at solnet.ch>:
> Thursday 08 November 2007, Roman Kyrylych wrote:
>  | GPL -> GPL2 or later
>
> how do you specify gpl1 gpl2 and gpl3 as valid ones?
>
>  | GPL2 - GPL2 only
>  | GPL3 - GPL3 or later
>
> this is inconsistent! if there will be a gpl4, you will be in trouble
> using this scheme, because you just left out the option for
> "GPL3 only"
>

I may not live so long to see a GPL4. :-P And by that time there will
be another situation in Arch (yeah, I hope Arch will live so long :-P)
that may require different solution.
Please tell me which package from our repos is "GPL1 only" or "GPL1 or later".
And how should we differentiate "GPL2 only" and "GPL2 or later"?

Your scheme is worse, because of:
> GPL1 -> GPL1
practically doesn't exist in wild
> GPL2 -> GPL2
"GPL2 only" or "GPL2 or later"? This is important difference.
> GPL3 -> GPL3
ok
> GPL -> all GPLs valid (synonyme for 'GPL1' 'GPL2' 'GPL3')
I didn't see a single package with "any GPL version starting from 1" license.

Dan proposed a good solution for current situation.
Most GPLed packages in our repos are 'GPL' and most of them are "GPL2 or later".
"GPL2 only" are a small minority, so introducing 'GPL2' for looks good to me.
Now "GPL3 or later" started to appear, and introducing 'GPL3' for them
looks good too.

Why don't make things practical instead of philosophical? ;-)

-- 
Roman Kyrylych (Роман Кирилич)


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