3 ms·

This may help contributors, but makes difficult to change the license in the future. I guess this the main reason why FSF requires copyright assignment to them.

This may help contributors, but makes difficult to change the license in the future. I guess this the main reason why FSF requires copyright assignment to them. Now that this is no longer needed, I really hope that the world will not need anything newer than GPLv3.

josephcsible 5y ago
This was addressed on the mailing list: changing to future versions of the GPL will still be possible, due to the "or any later version" wording. It's only changing to a non-GPL license that will now be impossible.
- Kenji 5y ago
  Isn't the "or any later version" clause super dangerous? What if a party somehow takes over the FSF and publishes a GPLv4 which is completely permissive? This seems like a time bomb. Am I misunderstanding something?
  - lmm 5y ago
    It's a real risk. You have to weigh that up against the possibility of someone finding a loophole in the GPLv3 (similar to what TiVO did with GPLv2, where they granted you a copyright license but used code signing to stop you actually making changes to the code on your device) that's patched in GPLv4, and your GPLv3-only code is incompatible with the GPLv4 so anyone who wants to use it in GPLv4 projects has to rewrite their own replacement instead.
  - ognarb 5y ago
    You can define a proxy since the GPL3. This is what we are doing at KDE so if a GPL4 appear, to apply to most KDE project you will need a vote of the KDE e.V. membership on it. For example: https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSES/LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL.txt https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSE...
segfaultbuserr 5y ago
> makes difficult to change the license in the future Copyright assignment is certainly a flexible way of doing that. But, if all you want is to upgrade GPL, it's completely unnecessary. As most GNU projects are licensed under the "with newer" clause, everyone, including GNU, can redistribute it under a new license unilaterally, without a copyright assignment - which, I suspect, makes a good argument to stop the copyright assignment requirement. Another important argument for copyright assignment is to allow centralized GPL enforcement. If a bad faith actor appears, the project can make the strongest legal defense. In my opinion the whole system works to enable this, e.g. the FSF also requires you to get the copyright disclaimer from your employers, otherwise the strength of the legal defense will be weaker. Unfortunately, for multiple reasons, a huge enforcement action is an extremely rare occurrence (the last, and possibly the only one, was the Cisco WRT54G case), and allegedly, some projects like the Linux kernel are even against active enforcements due to conflict of interest, thus, although I support active GPL enforcement in principle, based on the historical records I cannot say copyright assignment is all that useful (although I wish it would be). Moreover, the license enforcement model by the Software Freedom Conservatory showed centralized enforcement without copyright assignment appears practical [0] - all of these, I suspect, also make a good argument to stop the copyright assignment requirement. [0] https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st...
- ksec 5y ago
  I am wondering, what if somehow, hypothetically speaking, GPL 4.0 is the same as MIT or BSD. Does it mean it could "upgrade" to GPL 4.0 as well?
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    In the GPL 3 it says >The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. >Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation. >If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Program. >Later license versions may give you additional or different permissions. However, no additional obligations are imposed on any author or copyright holder as a result of your choosing to follow a later version.

josephcsible 5y ago

This was addressed on the mailing list: changing to future versions of the GPL will still be possible, due to the "or any later version" wording. It's only changing to a non-GPL license that will now be impossible.

Kenji 5y ago
Isn't the "or any later version" clause super dangerous? What if a party somehow takes over the FSF and publishes a GPLv4 which is completely permissive? This seems like a time bomb. Am I misunderstanding something?
- lmm 5y ago
  It's a real risk. You have to weigh that up against the possibility of someone finding a loophole in the GPLv3 (similar to what TiVO did with GPLv2, where they granted you a copyright license but used code signing to stop you actually making changes to the code on your device) that's patched in GPLv4, and your GPLv3-only code is incompatible with the GPLv4 so anyone who wants to use it in GPLv4 projects has to rewrite their own replacement instead.
- ognarb 5y ago
  You can define a proxy since the GPL3. This is what we are doing at KDE so if a GPL4 appear, to apply to most KDE project you will need a vote of the KDE e.V. membership on it. For example: https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSES/LicenseRef-KDE-Accepted-GPL.txt https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat/-/blob/master/LICENSE...

segfaultbuserr 5y ago

> makes difficult to change the license in the future Copyright assignment is certainly a flexible way of doing that. But, if all you want is to upgrade GPL, it's completely unnecessary. As most GNU projects are licensed under the "with newer" clause, everyone, including GNU, can redistribute it under a new license unilaterally, without a copyright assignment - which, I suspect, makes a good argument to stop the copyright assignment requirement. Another important argument for copyright assignment is to allow centralized GPL enforcement. If a bad faith actor appears, the project can make the strongest legal defense. In my opinion the whole system works to enable this, e.g. the FSF also requires you to get the copyright disclaimer from your employers, otherwise the strength of the legal defense will be weaker. Unfortunately, for multiple reasons, a huge enforcement action is an extremely rare occurrence (the last, and possibly the only one, was the Cisco WRT54G case), and allegedly, some projects like the Linux kernel are even against active enforcements due to conflict of interest, thus, although I support active GPL enforcement in principle, based on the historical records I cannot say copyright assignment is all that useful (although I wish it would be). Moreover, the license enforcement model by the Software Freedom Conservatory showed centralized enforcement without copyright assignment appears practical [0] - all of these, I suspect, also make a good argument to stop the copyright assignment requirement. [0] https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-st...

ksec 5y ago
I am wondering, what if somehow, hypothetically speaking, GPL 4.0 is the same as MIT or BSD. Does it mean it could "upgrade" to GPL 4.0 as well?
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  In the GPL 3 it says >The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the GNU General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns. >Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies that a certain numbered version of the GNU General Public License “or any later version” applies to it, you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that numbered version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of the GNU General Public License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation. >If the Program specifies that a proxy can decide which future versions of the GNU General Public License can be used, that proxy's public statement of acceptance of a version permanently authorizes you to choose that version for the Program. >Later license versions may give you additional or different permissions. However, no additional obligations are imposed on any author or copyright holder as a result of your choosing to follow a later version.