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I think you have some misconceptions about the GPL. "You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this L
by mbrubeck 13y ago
I think you have some misconceptions about the GPL.
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the exercise of the rights granted or affirmed under this License." (GPL v3 section 10)
"If the Program as you received it, or any part of it, contains a notice stating that it is governed by this License along with a term that is a further restriction, you may remove that term." (GPL v3 section 7)
"You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein." (GPL v2 section 6)
- icebraining 13y agoBut technically, the GPL - and in particular those terms - don't apply to the licenser/copyright holder, only to the licensee. So when the GPLv2 says that "You may not impose...", that only applies to someone who is re-distributing the work, not to the original distributer. The GPLv3 is different, due to section 7, since the licenser can't remove that line (the GPL itself is not Free to modify).
- drakaal 13y agoYou are correct. A lot of stuff is licensed under v2 since Linus didn't like v3 with good reason.
- belorn 13y agoA copyright owner can always release the same software under a different license. They just can't call it or expand upon the gplv3 license itself.
- mbrubeck 13y agoEven with GPLv2, adding additional restrictions effectively creates a new license -- one that is incompatible with the original GNU GPL, and for which GNU/FSF will not permit you to use the GNU GPL name or preamble. (This is covered in the GPL FAQ.) This is not surprising, since the sorts of restrictions mentioned in this thread violate "freedom 0" of the Free Software Definition.