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It's possible that this has been 'fixed' with GPL3. I just know Linus used it as a reason not to change the license of the Linux kernel.
by thomasahle 10y ago
It's possible that this has been 'fixed' with GPL3. I just know Linus used it as a reason not to change the license of the Linux kernel.
- cyphar 10y agoLinus explicitly opted out of the "or any later version" clause because he doesn't agree with the ideals of free software (seeing it as more of a practical convenience). All versions of the GPL have had an upgrade clause, mainly so that GNU projects can upgrade the license. Not to mention that much of the code inside Linux is under GPLv2-or-later, but because some of it is GPLv2-only the whole work is GPLv2-only.
- synchronise 10y agoOut of curiosity, how much code is actually GPLv2 only, and how hard would it be to replace those sections with code that was GPLv2+?
- cyphar 10y agoA lot of the core code (and dissapointingly, btrfs) is GPLv2-only. So rewrites are unlikely, you'd have to ask contributors to update the license. Just do a grep for "at your option", since that's the wording in the copyright header to specify that it's released under GPLv2-or-later, tells me that it isn't that great. It's around 10000 files (Linux has ~50000 files) so it's ~20% of files. This doesn't account for documentation or files that don't specify that they are under GPLv2-or-later.
- synchronise 10y agoWas there any specific reason that license was chosen for btrfs that you know of?
- cyphar 10y agoMy guess is >Oracle. They want to make the minimum possible community contribution.
- cyphar 10y agoNote: I just realised that I licensed kernel/cgroup_pids.c under GPLv2-only. which is wrong. I've sent a patch that also includes a fix to that header. http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=146673699017938&w=2 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=146673699017938&w=2