[aur-general] Licenses, GPL3 only

[Peter Lewis]

On Thursday 26 August 2010 at 18:57 Alexander Duscheleit wrote:
> Philipp Überbacher <hollunder at lavabit.com> wrote:
> > Besides that, I think it's future proof.
> > One issue though is that the meaning of:
> > ('GPL2' 'GPL3')
> > isn't the same as:
> > 'GPL2 or later'
> > It only is practically the same because there's nothing beyond GPL3
> > yet.
> 
> Just out of curiosity...
> 
> Supposed, there is a GPL4 around at some time in the future.
> Now, if I receive some software under the terms of "GPL2 or later",
> would it be in my right, to redistribute said software under "GPL3
> only" as opposed to "GPL3 or later"?

Yes, this is your right. Just as you can take some software released under 
"GPL2 or at your option, any later version" and redistribute it under GPL3 
only. This is "your option". You do not have the pass the option on, since 
that doesn't form part of the copyleft.

Of course, someone else can redistribute the original under GPL2 only, GPL4 
only, GPL2 "or later" or GPL3 "or later". That's their option :-)

HTH,

Pete.