4 ms·
The FSF couldn't arbitrarily relicense his work or the work of any of the other contributors to the Linux kernel that they don't hold the copyright to. The GPL
by yarrel 11y ago
The FSF couldn't arbitrarily relicense his work or the work of any of the other contributors to the Linux kernel that they don't hold the copyright to.
The GPLv3 had a long and comprehensive consultation phase. Linux contributors were involved in that.
And there's more than just dislike preventing relicensing - it would require contacting all the current Linux copyright holders and getting their agreement (or removing their code if they decline).
On balance I'd rather Linux remained GPLv2 than relicensed to Apache 2, so this is a good example of the definition of a compromise. :-)
- bryanlarsen 11y agoThat's exactly what happened to Samba. It was originally licensed with "GPLv2 or later", and now it's "GPLv3 or later". The main contributors to Samba were leading the switch, but they didn't get explicit permission from every single copyright holder, nor did they have to.
- mikeash 11y agoThey didn't need to contact the contributors because of that "or later" clause. The license explicitly lets anyone relicense to GPLv3 without asking anybody first. Linux's license doesn't have that clause, so you're not automatically allowed to relicense. Switching to GPLv3 would require the copyright holders to explicitly do so. Since Linux doesn't require contributors to assign copyright to some central organization, "the copyright holders" means all contributors, past and present.