3 ms·
> I find neither approach to be ideal. It is often impossible to gain consensus of all copyright holders since some may be unreachable. Well, licences are not
by shevy-java 7mo ago
> I find neither approach to be ideal. It is often impossible to gain consensus of all copyright holders since some may be unreachable.
Well, licences are not universal wonder tools. They have restrictions about their use cases. But, narrowing this down solely to "GPL xyz" versus "GPL xyz - or later fancypants", I always found the variant WITHOUT the "or later" to be better. It simply adds more complexity when a licence can willy-nilly be changed, at a later time, when a change happens. I understand the use case for the "or later" part, as the GPL is very strict as well as an ideological tool against abuse from corporations (let's be honest here; and I think the GPL is a good licence, despite this too), but even then I find it better to stick to the simpler variants. It is one reason why I may use GPLv2. I also use MIT/BSD when I essentially don't care much. I don't think I have had a use case for GPLv3; and not for "or later" either. LGPL is also fine.
> It’s patently clear that the license allows this, and it surprises me that this is rarely brought up in debates about GPL-3.0-only and GPL-3.0-or-later.
I was unaware that a proxy can be designated upfront; so that's another complexity with regards to the "or later" part. What can proxies do? I dislike the "or later" clause; it really just makes this way more complicated than it should be.
- weinzierl 7mo ago"It is often impossible to gain consensus of all copyright holders since some may be unreachable." How one feels about that is a matter of where one stands. The GPL first and foremost protects the interests of software users. Not developers. Not companies. In that regard, the above should be seen as a feature, not a bug. I believe it is the most effective way to protect the user from being locked-in.
- RobotToaster 7mo agoWith the "or later" version it's a concern that in the future someone nefarious could gain control of the FSF, and publish a GPL removing most of the copyleft provisions. On the other hand, if Linux had used the "or later" version it could have helped prevent TiVoization.
- bonoboTP 7mo agoNo because tivo could take it under the gpl2. It's not an auto upgrade. The new version is optional.
- gzread 7mo agoNew distros and modules could be v3-or-later.
- hmry 7mo ago> if Linux had used the "or later" version it could have helped prevent TiVoization Only if the hardware manufacturer used a combined work of Linux and some GPLv3-only code, no? Otherwise, if Linux was GPLv2-or-later, they could just use it under GPLv2 terms and tivoize.
- sellmesoap 7mo agoGPL Vader license, pray I do not alter the deal any further.
- pabs3 7mo agoAccording to Conservancy; Tivo didn't do "Tivoization", the GPLv3 doesn't prevent what Tivo actually did, and both GPLv2/GPLv3 prevent "Tivoization". https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/mar/25/install-gplv2/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-the-gpl-right-to-install/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2021/jul/23/tivoization-and-t... https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Safely-Copylefted-Cars-Reexamining-GPLv3-Installation-Information-Requirements-ALS-Bradley-Kuhn-Behan-Webster-1.pdf https://events19.linuxfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2017...
- gzread 7mo agoLinus now has come to support Tivoization. I presume this has something to do with where his salary comes from.
- samtheprogram 7mo ago
- duskdozer 7mo agoIt seems that "or later" would be putting an upper bound on the GPL restrictions? If additional restrictions are added, then users can still choose 3. If any restrictions are removed, the users can choose the later version.
- zvr 7mo agoThe main advantage for using "or later" is not really to be OK when a new version of the license is published, as this happens rarely. What you gain is the possibility of combining this code with any other code that is under a later version of the license. If there is code X under GPL-2.0-only and code Y under GPL-3.0-only, these cannot be combined, since each license declares that any derivative work has to be under the same license. If code X were under GPL-2.0-or-later, the combination would be compliant.
- mikkupikku 7mo agoI have long been skeptical of the "or later" clauses. I can imagine a not terribly distant future where RMS has passed away and GNU gets taken over by disinterested corporate psychos like happened to Mozilla, who then release GPL-4.0 without the copyleft, set up for industry looting of any GPL project that left in the "or later" clause.
- ronsor 7mo agoI think AI will render software licenses and copyright irrelevant long before a hypothetical evil GPL-4 gets released. Most new (corporate-sponsored!) software is already under permissive licenses anyway.
- mikkupikku 7mo agoTrue.. my hope is that open weight models will progress to the point where they become viable coding agents for normies, so that even if open source dies with copyright, we will still nonetheless see a renaissance in people controlling their own computers, being able to create their own programs to solve their own problems. HyperCard on steroids, that anybody can use with no technical background. We're not there yet even for frontier models, but maybe in a few more years..
- anthk 7mo agoIf any AI's will be sued into oblivion from Copyright holders until the bubble collapses into itself due to LLM rot over time due to the lack of curated human input.
- ronsor 7mo agoThis is quite frankly not a serious scenario. Once the label "national security" gets affixed to anything, you'd better be sure it's not going away. Also, half of all AI development is in China. Why would China care about Western copyright holders, or rather, why would they start caring?
- 7mo ago